


the good grace to know which is which

by SociopathicArchangel



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Gen, Hot Fuzz, and also a bastard, and writing, beelzebub just wants to get things done, gabriel is a big hypocrite, i hate this this idea is what sent me down a rabbit hole, now im stuck in hell, so anyway i wanted some buddy cop dynamics and I HAVE TO DO EVERYTHING MYSELF, the ineffable plan, title of course from the buddy cop movie of all buddy cop movies
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-06-24
Updated: 2019-10-14
Packaged: 2020-05-18 22:14:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 10
Words: 26,437
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19343707
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SociopathicArchangel/pseuds/SociopathicArchangel
Summary: If you want it done right, you should just do it yourself.Or, Gabriel and Beelzebub, and the problem of the Ineffable Plan.





	1. Say Your Prayers

If you want it done right, you should just do it yourself.

Humanity has so many trite sayings. Gabriel loves a good portion of them - loves that some of them are often a variation of what Heaven has said too - but this is one he would rather prefer to not actually execute. Agents should be capable of doing the tasks you have set out for them to do. They must be efficient, reliable, and above all unquestioning and loyal. There’s a severe lack in the last one on all sides, sadly (or maybe not sadly, because that’s just common for Hell and Earth, but well - then, there’s Aziraphale, in regards to Heaven), so now there’s an ongoing review as to everyone within the ranks. 

But, matters, whatever they may be now that the Apocalypse has been put on hold until further notice, need to be attended to, and there’s only so much manpower that can be spared when those who  _ are  _ known to be loyal are reviewing the paperwork of ten million angels. 

And yes, the Apocalypse has been on hold, and nobody knows what to do now, but that’s exactly it. No one knows what to do, and so what should be done is to be figured out. Which, well, if they really think about it, what should be done is to figure out the Ineffable Plan.

And while they’re at it, maybe also figure out how the Great Plan factors into it, because it  _ is  _ written, it’s just that two yahoos had pointed out some plot holes in it. 

So, if you want it done right, you should just do it yourself.

Thus, this is the reason why a previously unoccupied sidewalk that’s currently being battered down by the rain suddenly finds itself occupied. There is a sound similar to the crack of thunder, but isolated to a single spot. Lightning strikes the ground, but it hits nothing else, and the flash that erupts from it condenses, in less than a second, into the shape of a man. When the lightning dies, there is a man-shaped being there, dressed impeccably and being thoroughly avoided by the raindrops for fear of their existence.

The man-shaped being lifts his head and surveys the area. It is late at night. There is no one around the street at this hour.

Good. Smiling slightly, which is a thing he does a lot but rarely means, the Archangel Gabriel steps off the sidewalk, not an umbrella in hand, but dry as if the rain wasn’t there at all.

 

* * *

 

 

Contacting the angels is obviously already out of the question. Aziraphale has already been fraternizing with a demon for years and can’t even be hurt by Hellfire for it, so that’s not even something worth considering. Everyone else who has had assignments here, however brief, has been recalled back to Heaven for evaluation. 

This means Gabriel is doing this alone. 

The first step to figuring out the Ineffable Plan is to figure out exactly how to even approach the figuring out part. The Ineffable Plan, sadly, is by its nature Ineffable, so nobody knows a single thing about it save for the Almighty. Now, the logical answer to this conundrum is, of course, to ask the Almighty. Not the Metatron, the Almighty. Unfortunately, none of the angels know the Almighty’s office hours (they haven’t since the Fall of Mankind), which is the reason why they’ve kind of built a bureaucratic system and run things by themselves for the past six thousand years. 

So, therefore, while the dealer in this game of universe stays smiling while giving out the cards, Gabriel is going to have to figure out the rules so Heaven can play the game and play it right. 

He’s got a plan. Or at least, the inklings of one. Because, see, while direct contact is rare for the angels (and no, messages passed on through the Metatron do not count, it’s called  _ direct  _ contact for a reason), and even rarer for demons (not that Gabriel knows that; not even Crowley knows this, but this is just a bit of a footnote to existence), it’s not at all rare for humans. 

Yes, Heaven and Hell muck around and influence them, push and pull and thwart and wile, but humans do most of what they already do themselves. They also have a large sounding board that, every now and then, slips notes under the door to the Archangels’ office, or sometimes just delivers it straight to the requesting humans’ living rooms. 

Which - now that he thinks about it, if Heaven isn’t directly contacted, then doesn’t that mean that maybe they’re doing something wrong? He  _ doesn’t _ think about it, though. There is no room for doubt here, so he curb stomps that thought straight out of existence and continues walking down the path to the large church down the road. 

That’s actually a bit of luck (or - maybe, just maybe, not luck at all, but he wouldn’t know that) since he’d just randomly tapped a place on Earth and descended. The plan is to go find someone who prays and have them ask for him, as when they’d done a quick check on the list of answered prayers in the past six millennia, the list had been about nine times as long as they’d initially thought it would be, with the miracles attributed mostly to no one, as there was no name logged in for them. They’d done another check on the archives of the history of the world, cross-referenced and put two and two together.

(And, okay, maybe it stung a little that they weren’t the favorite kids, after all, in a matter of speaking  _ but,  _ they’re still angels for a reason and the demons are still demons for a reason, so,  _ hah.) _

He knows all about praying. It’s a direct hotline between humans and Heaven, in a way, even if all their prayers end up in a Request Center and the employees assigned there sort out which prayers are deemed well enough for a miracle and hand out the work to the rest of the host. But, if there’s a way that the Almighty is just directly answering the prayers even if Heaven hasn’t approved of it, then there has to be something to it, right?

A special line, maybe? Some holy number? Words?

He’s going to have to figure it out.

Gabriel walks the thirty minutes to the cathedral in the middle of the downpour, and stands by the door. In the olden days, most churches were usually open at night, and were a good place to duck into for street urchins and the few people who’ve gone on a bender and have gotten nothing out of it but anxiety and existential dread. As it’s no longer the olden days, however, and Gabriel’s chosen this particular church at 2:30 in the morning, no one is awake to open the doors for him.

He knocks, of course, but no one answers. He knocks again and again, between five minute intervals, and eventually, a human in ragged clothes passing by tells him he’s going to have to wait until the five o’clock mass to get inside. This makes him frown, but - well, two more rounds don’t open the door, so he waits outside, standing prim and proper, hands folded together like some life-sized wax figure of an office manager. Patience is a virtue, after all. 

He waits the two hours and thirty minutes it takes until the church doors are opened. And then he goes inside and waits an hour more for the mass to end.

 

* * *

 

 

He’s never had an opinion on churches. Pride is a sin and humans also tended to get so much wrong and then say they’re doing it in the name of God, so everyone upstairs pretty much voted, nah this ain’t it. Actually, that’s Gabriel’s usual approach to humans, plus that they’re very gullible, because they are. He’s lost count of the amount of reports of ‘miracles’ reaching Heaven and causing confusion, since no one had been assigned in that particular area for a quick miracle. Whenever they checked, they always found out that, oh, the humans tricked themselves again.

So he just sits at the back, unimpressed, listening to the human preacher talk about some thing or another; around him, the humans seem to have an understanding that the pew he’s sitting on isn’t somewhere they should be occupying and so they’re avoiding it. Rightfully so, he’d rather not share a seat with any of them. 

The service has a lot of standing up and sitting downs, and he does none of those and instead just sits down for the whole thing, because it’s not like anyone’s going to notice, not when he’s at the very back, and the pew on the opposite column from his has two kids who are busy playing on their phones.  He just waits, angelic patience and all, until the service is done and the humans all start to file their way out.

He knows who he’s going to talk to. Obviously, the leader of the church shouldn’t be anyone he could go wrong with, so he stands and starts to make his way to the front when he feels the prickle of something behind him. 

Where good thrives, evil is often not too far behind, intent on tying up good's shoelaces, so he’s not at all surprised. He is, however, annoyed, because this is just inconvenient, especially if the demon is here to tempt the priest. So he turns around, ready to do some impromptu smiting if need be. Or a casting. Humans are terribly vulnerable to possession as well. 

He tries to spot the source of the evil, seeing not with his corporation’s eyes to make the process faster, and spots some dark stain among the throng of multicolored human souls. His desire to not rub shoulders with the humans battles with his desire to get a good throw down with the demon for a small second, but the angelic duty wins out, because of course it does. However, in this small second of hesitation, the dark stain suddenly steps out from the crowd of souls.

Gabriel’s incorporeal wings flare up for a moment, thinking it’s spotted him, but when he adjusts his sight back to his vessel, he sees that the demon is actually just looking towards the altar, positively annoyed with having to brush past so many humans. 

And also very notably not getting their feet burned. 

He looks down. They’re wearing really thick platform shoes. Maybe seven inches. 

The demon adjusts the ruby red aviators on their face from where it’s almost slipping off. The altar boy beside them laughs.

“Shut the fuck up, Jonathan.”

“You can’t  _ curse,  _ this is a church,” the boy says. His soul appears to be just as bright as the rest of the humans, unstained and untainted. He just doesn’t seem to know he’s talking to a demon in camouflage corporation. 

“Whatever, where’s the father?”

The altar boy motions for them to follow him, and they start to make their way down the pews. Maybe they really are here for some tempting then (maybe drugs? They have a satchel). 

Gabriel follows them, not even trying to be discreet. As soon as he’s only two feet away from the demon, they halt in their steps. The altar boy stops too, confused, and when he turns and spots Gabriel, he offers a toothy smile.

“Sir?” he asks.

Gabriel ignores him. He smiles at the kid, but then he focuses the rest of his attention at glaring at the demon in front of him, who’s just turned and is lowering their glasses to peer up at him. 

He blinks.

Beelzebub sighs, exasperated. “John, would you be a dear and tell the father someone wants to have a talk with him? I’ll be with him in a second, I just have to catch up with this asshole here.”

“You can’t  _ curse.” _

“Oh, scram, kid, go on. Shoo.” They motion for him to get on with it, and he leaves, cracking a small smile, but his gaze turns wary as he glances at Gabriel. 

Figures humans wouldn’t be able to identify an angel if one was in the midst of them. 

“Hello, Gabriel,” Beelzebub says, with absolutely no patience for him. They push their glasses up and cross their arms. “What do you want?”

“Nothing to do with you,” he says with a smile. “I’m here for the priest.”

“Time for him to get raptured or what?”

He snorts. “Not at all, although I don’t see why I should be telling you any of Heaven’s business.”

“Ah, alright then.” They turn around and start to head where the altar boy is currently talking to the priest, but Gabriel grabs their arm. They pull it back sharply like they’ve been burned, and he can hear loud buzzing around his ears for a solid five seconds as they bare their teeth at him. 

“Don’t touch me.”

“You are not going anywhere near that priest.”

“Watch me, prick,” they say, and stomp their way towards the altar, but Gabriel lets his wings flap out a small puff and stands in front of them in less than a second.

They narrow their eyes at him from behind the glasses. “Alright, not only are you an idiot of the highest order, you’re also just difficult.”

Gabriel does his signature blink-and-smile-with-a-tilt-of-the-head at them. “I prefer  _ persevering. _ ”

“Perseveringly a pain in the ass,” they say, go around him, and continue their way towards the altar, their platform shoes smoking a little at the bottom with every step they take. The altar boy and the priest have frozen now, gaping at them, likely because they’ve seen Gabriel go from point A to point B without actually having to walk there.

He finds he doesn’t care, not really, and just goes after Beelzebub, save that they’ve speedwalked towards the altar and are climbing the steps before he can grab them down from standing on what’s effectively the church’s holiest area.

“Hi,” they say, smiling at the altar boy and the priest, and they both seem to snap out of their bewilderment now that they’re not staring at Gabriel.

“Uh - Father Renee, this is Belle, the one I told you about,” the altar boy manages out, and then he glances back at Gabriel in confusion.

“Lovely to meet you, Father,” Beelzebub says, holding out a gloved hand. The priest shakes it, none the wiser, and Gabriel finds that a tic has started under his eye at the fact that there is a  _ demon,  _ with slowly-smoking platform shoes and thick leather gloves, standing by an altar and exchanging pleasantries with a priest like they belong there. 

This is a  _ church,  _ for Heaven’s sake.

“What did you want to talk about, child?” The priest asks, looking like he’s taking considerable effort to not grill Gabriel on what he just did, and actually addressing the one who wants to ask him questions in the first place.

Gabriel should drag Beelzebub by the collar and throw them out the church. Better yet, he should just smite them on sight, but Heaven and Hell have a treaty at the moment, if only to have a little bit of space to figure out the Ineffable Plan and also maybe, just maybe, find a way to pull on Aziraphale and Crowley’s ears a little if they can’t fully wipe them out of existence. 

Unfortunately, he’s already given the humans a little scare and...well, as much as he doesn’t actually care about them, the prerogative  _ is  _ to blend in with them. Also, paperwork.

So instead he just smiles and stands next to Beelzebub, and both of them push at each other’s auras as a celestial version of arm wrestling for the next ten minutes. 

“I wanted to ask how to contact...uh.” Beelzebub points upward. 

Gabriel raises an eyebrow.

Well, this is a surprise. 

He supposes that backstabbing is incredibly common in Hell, but actually seeking out a way to Rise? That’s something else.

He tries to evaluate where he’s supposed to stand here. On one hand, Heaven is all about forgiveness and mercy and love and all that jazz. They’re the good guys, after all. On the other hand, there’s a reason that demons are demons, and, really, if one of them is looking to Rise, it’s probably just to be inside man and pull a Morningstar 2.0. 

Right, so, smiting is still on the books. He pushes at Beelzebub’s aura harder.

“Oh.” The priest laughs, like he's been asked this question too many times and expects it at this point. “Well,  I would start with prayer, my dear.”

Beelzebub’s fake smile turns a little strained. “Prayer, Father?”

“Yes,” he says. “It’s easier than most people think it is, it’s not all just Hail Mary’s or Our Father’s. Just say what you really want to say to God, and He’ll listen.”

Gabriel only isn’t able to correct the man because Beelzebub throws the equivalent of a sucker punch at his aura and he has to hold his ground to not physically topple. They are a Prince of Hell, after all. 

“Just like that?” Beelzebub asks, smile still strained. “No closing eyes or clasping of hands? No Words? ”

“Oh, that’s a formality,” the priest says, “Really, what matters is what’s in your heart when you’re praying. People close their eyes to focus, clasp their hands to feel like they’re holding on to something. But it’s the words and the intent that matters.”

“Ah,” Beelzebub says. “Right.” 

Gabriel’s mind drifts to the Request Center in Heaven. It’s the biggest department in the whole organization. His plan had been for a human to pray to God, and to God directly, but this just sounds like regular praying. He’d actually been hoping they’d had something else up their sleeve. Maybe the Our Father’s and Hail Mary’s were onto something.

Maybe it still is, but - hm. This approach might be useless.

“No Hail Mary’s or Our Father’s?” Beelzebub tries, even when they mumble the prayer’s names through gritted teeth.

“Those are guides, child,” the priest says, “Or a way of relief, for when one is doing penance.”

“I see,” Beelzebub says. “There’s no other way to contact G - uh.”

Father Renee laughs heartily, amused, as if he’s forgotten the presence of Gabriel there. “Not unless he appears face to face or sends an angel - ” There’s the tic again. “ - child. And even then, I don’t think we’d know it until after.”

“Ah.” Beelzebub’s smile widens, not in any form of mirth. “Thank you, Father.”

“I can show you how, if you want to,” the man says.

Beelzebub is already walking away, platform shoes leaving a melted rubbery mark where they’d been standing for minutes. Gabriel almost staggers at the sudden loss of pressure pushing at him. “That won’t be necessary.”

The priest looks down in surprise at the puddle of melted rubber. Beelzebub’s shoes’ soles are only around four inches thick now.

Gabriel considers his next move. For one, if he’d ask the priest, the answer is likely going to be the same, since the man had no idea that Beelzebub was a demon, but - 

“There’s really no desk phone to talk to God?”

The man turns to him, smiling at first, but then remembers exactly what he’d just seen him do and stutters.

“Uh, well,” he says, “I’m afraid not. Everything would be a whole lot easier then, wouldn’t it?” He tries for a friendly smile, but it just ends up being half-terrified. The altar boy slinks off in the awkwardness, maybe to find something to scrape off the rubber Beelzebub’s left behind.

“Right,” Gabriel says. He gives the priest a smile of his own, and then follows Beelzebub out. 

The demon has stopped right outside the church and is looking around, hands on their hips, huffing in annoyance. They turn when they hear his footsteps.

“What?” they ask.

“Why do you want to talk to God?” he asks.

Beelzebub winces a little at the mention. “None of your business.”

“I think it quite is, given that I’m an Archangel.”

“Does that actually mean anything other than a fancy desk label?”

He frowns at them. 

Beelzebub simply turns around and starts trekking down and away from the church. Their platform shoes, now sadly melted to around three inches and a nine centimeters, have thankfully stopped smoking. 

Gabriel stuffs his hands in his pockets and mentally crosses out his first course of action. Well, there went that theory. He can revisit it later, but for now, it just seems like it really is a bust.


	2. The Speck From Your Own Eye

First theory shot down, he's going to have to find another one. 

So, given that he's not inclined to sit outside in the sun for the whole time he brainstorms, and it'll also just be terribly inefficient if he popped back up to Heaven without actually anything of note to say (because he's going to have to make a detailed report of every visit he’s going to make, however many he needs to for this job - his own rules, really, for angels not permanently stationed on earth, and he's just now realizing the horrific amount of paperwork he would have to make), he wanders around and tries to find someplace he'd be inconspicuous in, which is significantly a lot harder than he'd thought. 

His missions had usually been easy. Find the designated human, pop by them, give them the message, leave. More or less, the only grief they've ever given him was attempt to faint every now and then (Daniel, ugh), and miss out on the message. 

Whenever he'd had to visit any of the Earth-stationed angels, it was pretty much the same. The only place he'd ever actually deigned to visit outside of work was his favorite tailor shop, and he can't very well loiter there. There are rules, after all. 

Well, there was the park, but he usually jogged there. And that was in London.

Still. It was a public place and no one would think it odd if he was there, right? He could just pretend to be doing something, or just sit there. People sit in parks a lot.

So he directs his steps there, or tries to, since this isn’t London and he doesn’t know where the nearest park is. He’s bound to find it eventually, though, with a bit of walking, so he’s not too worried. Worse comes to worse, he can actually just fly and say it was done to be efficient (he misses the carefreeness that came with the apocawasn’t as he thinks this - the fact that they could just do miracle after miracle with no regard for ‘blending in’ because there wasn’t going to be a world to blend in with for long anyway, so there weren’t going to be consequences).

He walks, and walks, and after a while realizes that maybe his plan of just stumbling across the park wasn’t going to work, so he ducks under the shade of one of the overhangs near him. Right, so, he’s probably going to need a map, or directions. He should ask one of the humans. They’re good for that.

He looks around. He’s by a cafe, and there’s tables nearby for the customers who wanted a seat out, so there’s plenty of people for him to ask. Good. Spotting someone nearby with a hat and a map, he walks up to them, faux friendly smile on his face, until he realizes that the owner of the hat is also wearing some infuriatingly familiar red aviators, even when he’s only seen said aviators once.

“Oh, Satan preserve me, you again,” Beelzebub lowers their map. “What are you doing here?”

“Working,” Gabriel says, smile dropping. “Which I also assume you to be doing. Evil never rests.”

“Evil wishes it did, though,” they mutter, and then follow it up with something about a need for vacation days. “If that’s all, then this should be no problem, as we’re both just doing our jobs. Off with you now.”

They pick up their map again, straighten it out by pulling both ends of it harshly, and lift it up in a way that he can’t see their face anymore.

“Evil wiles and good thwarts, you forget that,” Gabriel reminds. 

“He’s still talking,” Beelzebub says.

Gabriel smiles, because that’s really his go-to expression, whether he’s genuinely happy, confused about something, or irritated.  “ _ He  _ is right here and can hear you.”

“I pray he stops doing that,” Beelzebub says. Gabriel swats the map out of their hands. They look affronted. 

“I don’t take too kindly to blasphemy,” he says. They just pick their map back up again.

“You don’t take too kindly to anything, Gabriel, what’s new,” they say. “And I’m not here to wile, I’m here to do my job, so  _ kindly -  _ how do you say it -  _ piss off. _ ”

“And is your job not to wile?” he asks.

Beelzebub raises an eyebrow at him. “That’s a little below my pay grade, Gabriel. I organize. I assign. I figure things out, I hand out the jobs, I’m the reason hell is running smoothly despite all the paperwork that has to be dealt with.”

“So you’re a pencil-pusher.”

Beelzebub sneers. “Pot, kettle.”

He frowns. 

“If you weren’t, then what are you doing here, then?” they ask, “Oh great messenger. Glorified news boy.”

“I am on a holy mission,” he says, straightening up a bit. Had his wings been on the physical plane, they would have spread out. 

“To?”

“None of your business.”

“Okay, off with you then.” They wave a hand to shoo him off.

His irritation just flares at that. Demons. Nasty little things ought to be squashed under his heel. He reviews the conditions of the Heaven-Hell treaty for a moment.  _ If the reason for violence is defense, it not considered a breach of the treaty. If the smited party is guilty of messing about humans  _ (they had to put a stop to that in order to avoid behind the scenes operations and going around the treaty),  _ it is not considered a breach of the treaty. Any interaction resulting in evident harm outside of these conditions is a breach of the treaty. _

He’s already shoved Beelzebub around a little, anyway, surely everyone would let him actually do some smiting and just let it slide?

“Well?” Beelzebub asks.

“What are you doing here, Beelzebub?” he asks instead, forcibly plastering that smile back on his face again.

“Work,” they repeat.

“What sort of work?”

“Infernal work.”

“Specify.”

“I’m my own manager, thank you, Gabriel,” they say. 

“Our treaty specifies that the use of human agents or underhanded human influence is prohibited. If you have broken these rules, I am well within my rights to smite you,” he says. 

Beelzebub answers slowly. “Is that why you’re here, to keep an eye on me?”

Angels don’t lie, so Gabriel just smiles wider, this time a little more sincere with the glee of one-upping the demon.

After a moment, Beelzebub sighs. “I’m here on a mission to figure out the Ineffable Plan,” they say. They force a fake smile of their own for a second. “Happy?”

He - pauses. 

That’s a surprise. 

They hadn’t been looking to rise after all. In fact, they’re pretty much on the same job as him, which, now that he thinks about it, isn’t actually that surprising given that the stalemate affects both Heaven and Hell. Downstairs must be getting antsy too, as much them, and they’ll likely want a fighting chance when the End  _ does  _ hit. 

Not that they’d win. Good always triumphs.

“A church?” he asks.

“If I wanted to know the Ineffable Plan, I’d ask G - ” they catch themself and point up. “Her.”

“And you went to a church.”

“Not like that’s strictly Heaven’s anymore.”

He’s about to get angry, but they do have a point, so he just nods in a way that says,  _ You’re not wrong,  _ and lets it slide. 

“That was a bust anyway,” they say. “So there. I’m not doing anything to breach our treaty. Now go.”

“How can I be sure you’re not lying?” he asks. He can’t trust them, after all, even if Beelzebub is the type to keep appointments. That didn’t mean that extended to promises. 

They just level him with an unamused look.

“What’s with the map?” he asks. 

“I’m not an idiot and I don’t come up here much, so I’m not sure how the lay of the land works,” they say. “I’m not about to ask bloody Crowley. I got a map.”

He snorts. 

“Laugh when you get lost,” they say.

He immediately stiffles his laughter, if only to not let them know he almost had. He was, actually, but hey, he’s not anymore so that doesn’t really count, does it?

“What else do you want to ask? What else do you want?” They sound tired. “I have places to be, Gabriel.”

He looks down at their map, which they’ve lowered enough that he can see. He notices, for the first time, that they actually have a red pen on the table, just hidden by the way they were holding the paper, and that there’s red X’s all over the map. 

They said they were going to figure out the Ineffable Plan. 

He grabs the map, which turns out to be one of the city and the areas surrounding it, ignoring their protest of,  _ “Hey!”  _ and quickly memorizes the layout. The advantage of being an angel is that he’s not restricted by the same things as humans, like slow, faulty memory, and the maximum of two brain cells.

Beelzebub grabs the map from him. 

_ “Rude,”  _ they say, “I could write that up as a breach of the treaty, if you don’t watch it.”

“You wouldn’t dare.”

“I would, big boy, ss _zzzo_ _naff off  -_ ” They catch their speech impediment and pause. Then, again, “Naff off if you don’t want that.”

Gabriel narrows his eyes at them. But no matter, he’s already memorized the places Beelzebub is planning to pop by, anyway. He can just go to them first, and figure the Ineffable plan out before them. There has to be some merit to the places they’d marked. Beelzebub is a demon, but they’re not dumb.

He fixes his scarf and sniffs, even when Beelzebub makes a face like he’s being snooty, and walks away, leaving the demon with their map, and the stupid halfway-melted platform shoes they still had on. 

 

* * *

There were seven places that Beelzebub had marked on the map. Gabriel could fly from place to place, but the humans would probably notice it if he just appeared in their midst (and also, ugh,  _ paperwork,  _ when was the next apocalypse due anyway), so he takes cabs and walks down the right streets and asks for the right directions to get to them.

The first place is a homeless shelter. Upon asking around (because he’s still trying to figure out if Earth wi-fi works the same as Heaven wi-fi), he figures out that the place is a non-profit run by a bunch of volunteers who scrounge up what little they can and is supported by neighbors generous enough to donate. The whole place actually reeks of  _ good,  _ and bursts with a kaleidoscope of colors when he shifts his vision to look at the souls.

There really had been some merit to Beelzebub’s research, after all. This place is the real thing, an actual beacon of human goodness that should make him feel good and proud and so full of love for humanity, but instead, because he’s Gabriel, only brings up the usual nothing for him.

Only a few of the volunteers inside believe in the Almighty, though, so he’s passed around for a little while before he talks to a young college student who tells him the same thing the priest had told Beelzebub, and he thinks about the Request Center in Heaven again, where half of this young student’s prayers likely landed in. Another useless end, because he  _ knows  _ where prayer ends up and knows they’re all sorted out by his lot and it’s only through some actual miracles that things do happen without them having to pass by Heaven, so he politely excuses himself and steps out of the shelter feeling disappointed.

The next place he goes to is a center for troubled youth and children. Also legit, when he does a few days of legwork to check as to why it had caught Beelzebub’s attention. It takes in young people and children who want to stay, whatever their reasons, and gives them what they need, as much as the center can give. Another place that should give him the warm fuzzies yet still scrounges up a big blank in him. 

It’s also a bust. The head of the organization does practice faith, but she tells him the same thing. You pray, you work, you get a miracle. 

Gabriel knows all about work, but he also knows about prayer, so this is just frustrating. Maybe it’s less so, being human, trusting in the big silver city in the sky and believing that it’s going to be with them as they walk through life, maybe giving them small favors here and there that line up with their decisions. But actually being an angel and  _ heading  _ the big silver city in the sky, he knows what goes on behind the curtains, and it’s a lot of paperwork and also a lot of ignoring humanity in general. 

And then things  _ still  _ happen anyway. What he needs to figure out is that. 

The next two places give him the same result, and he actually considers just not doing the fifth in case it was going to end up with the same thing, but he’s an  _ angel.  _ He’s all about love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness and self control.  _ Patience.  _ He knows how to persevere, and he knows how to not give up. 

He finds the place (a small clinic in the middle of nowhere, the one beacon of hope for healthcare to all the people there who couldn’t afford to go to the city), does his research, and pops by, knowing he’ll be out of place in his pristine outfit. 

Only, when he gets there, the door opens and Beelzebub steps out, a frown on their face. 

They look up and that frown gets deeper.

They close their eyes and lower their head. “I am actually being tested.”

“I think that’s my line,” he says. 

Beelzebub shoves past him, shoulder-checking him despite being a full foot shorter than him, which is impressive. 

He grits his teeth, deciding on whether to not take the bait - that won’t leave a bruise, after all, and they can just say they were walking past him from a really narrow door, which wouldn’t be a lie - and turns to ask, “Well?”

“Well, what?” They’re still walking away, and it’s in the middle of nowhere with no one around anyway, so he flies the short distance from the doorway to the spot in front of them and they nearly knock their head into his collarbone. 

“Did you get any answers?”

“If I had any, would I tell you?”

“No, but you wouldn’t be here either, would you?” he asks, “You have no tact in leaving.”

“Keep your prejudices to yourself, I’m not here to listen,” they say, and try to get around him, but he steps in their way. They step to the left, and he mirrors them. They go at this for a while, Beelzebub trying to walk past him and him blocking them, before they huff and flap their own wings just to get past him.

When he turns after he realizes they’ve done that, they’re running off as fast as they can go with their platform shoes, which is not very fast at all, given the rocky terrain they’re on.

Gabriel chases after them for a solid minute before deciding that he can just list out lengthy excuses in the paperwork and flying ahead of them again.

Beelzebub skids to a stop, nearly trips, and holds their arms out to steady themself. “What do you  _ want?” _

“An answer,” he says, ready to block them again if need be. “I want to know if you’ve been breaking the treaty.”

“I haven’t broken no bloody treaty, you daft blithering melon of a man, I’ve only been doing my  _ job.” _

“And what did you do?”

“None of your business, that’s what!”

“It is, considering I am, in fact, head of Heaven’s negotiations team.” And he is. Beelzebub’s eye twitches, in full view since they’ve rested their red aviators on their head, sitting on the brim of their hat like a more fashionable version of the fly on their head for their more hellish form. 

They deliberate. Then, “I asked them the same thing I asked in the church, they gave me the same answer.”

Ah. Shame.

“I see,” he says. He tries to think of anything to say that’s going to infuriate them, just before he leaves, but then they ask - 

“And you? Why are you showing up in all the places I was going to go to before I’ve even gotten there?”

He pauses. “Excuse me, what?”

“People notice when others ask nearly the same questions within such a small span of time,” they say, “Of course the humans said,  _ oh, funny that, some man was here a while ago.” _

Hm. Alright, maybe he’s miscalculated this a little. But weren’t humans supposed to have terrible memory? They forgot about things every five minutes or so, right?

“I asked them about the man, and it sure sounded a lot like someone man-shaped I knew,” Beelzebub said. “What’s your business?” Before he can say anything, they say, “And  _ I’m  _ head of Hell’s organization department. That includes PR and negotiations.” They smile, a mocking mirror of his usual own, only with a lot more teeth. “I can write you up if you break the treaty.”

Gabriel frowns. He could feed them something or another about checking if they would get any info but - hm. Angels don’t lie. They smile and don’t answer, yes, but that’s not  _ lying.  _ That’s just smiling and not answering. 

But then again, he was, technically, checking if they had any info on direct contact with the Almighty, so is that really lying?

“Trying to figure out the Ineffable Plan too, are you?” Beelzebub asks him before he can get anything out. 

Gabriel blinks. 

His silence appears to be damning, because Beelzebub’s smile gets wider. “You’re not here at all to check up on me, are you? You’re here because your lot decided to saddle you with the legwork.”

“I’m here on what mission I am supposed to be on,” he says.

“Pencil-pusher,” they say, voice tinny and mocking. 

“Watch it.”

“Ah, well, you got promoted, didn’t you? To field agent? How’s earth?”

“As unremarkable as it usually is,” he says, drawing himself up to his full height like that’s going to scare them. It doesn’t, of course. Beelzebub’s still a demon. 

“That sounds like blasphemy, not loving all Her creatures.”

“It’s angelic objectivity. Besides, the  _ world  _ is to be rejected anyway,” he says, sounding smug like he’s dealt a good argument. He thinks for a moment. “And yes, I have been assigned to figure out the Ineffable Plan, which isn’t coming too badly along.”

“And that’s why you stole my map and went off of  _ my  _ work, sure.”

“That’s what you call resourcefulness, Beelzebub,” Gabriel says, “Which I doubt Hell knows, evil being stuck in its ways and all.”

“It’s a lot better than you minimalist bastards,” they say. “And it sounds like you’re having as much luck as I am, anyway.” 

The wind goes out his sails a little. “Perhaps.”

Beelzebub snickers. “Well,” they say, moving their aviators and sliding them onto their face. “Since you’ve been going off on work that’s  _ not  _ yours - how unangelic, Gabriel, positively demonic - I’d say good luck actually getting anywhere.”

He crosses his arms, frown deepening, and Beelzebub just shoots him another grin, before speedwalking past him like Heaven was on their heels. 

Well, he still did have a couple more places to visit. It’s not like he can’t figure things out on his own, and it  _ was  _ resourcefulness. 

Evil always sows the seeds of its own destruction, and good always triumphs. He’s going to figure the Ineffable Plan first before them, he’s sure of it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Beelzebub attempting an American expression in hopes it will get through Gabriel's thick skull: Big Boy
> 
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	3. Man Plans His Actions

The sixth place Beelzebub has marked down is an orphanage. It had been founded by a man who grew out of another orphanage, as he was never adopted, and managed to - with luck and hard work and a good head on his shoulders - land it bigtime and end up being a CEO. He never forgot where he came from and never forgot that there are kids who are living through what he’d gone through.

For a second, Gabriel actually wonders how Beelzebub had even managed to find these places at all, with their genuinely good people that would make Heaven proud if Heaven were inclined for that sort of thing. He’s heard they didn’t even have wi-fi downstairs. Most of them still typed on _typewriters,_ because that was as far as they’d advanced. Somewhere in the depths of Hell is a movable-type printing press, likely. 

Aside from that, there’s also the fact that they’re a demon. Finding evil should be a piece of cake to them, but finding good shouldn’t be something they’d excel at because it’s not something they’re used to doing. And they don’t even visit topside much - their own words.

It’s likely human agents, or other demons of Hell. Maybe the one who had a tendency to have numerous bodies running around all at once, _Many_ or something. Between all their vessels, they’re bound to have found something. 

Gabriel gets himself an appointment with the orphanage founder, idly deciding Heaven can just read a lengthy report about the amount of miracles he’s doing, and strolls in the building with that amiable smile on his face, waiting for the headmistress who’s suddenly remembered that they had a visitor for the day. She doesn’t know and will not know what he’s visiting for, but she just knows he’s visiting, and she needs to take him to the founder. 

She does. She leads him up winding staircases and past kids who are running down for the backyard since classes are out and it’s playtime, until they get to the founder’s study. Everyone is welcomed to the study, just as long as the man who owns it is there. 

Gabriel smiles at the human when he gets inside. He can appreciate the room’s decor. Silver and white and glass and sleek. A little crowded with books and paperwork, but passable. 

The man shakes his hand, not sure why he’s doing so but knowing this _is_ what he should be doing, and Gabriel doesn’t even beat around the bush. He asks him right away - does he know a way to contact God?

The man stares at him, and Gabriel worries if the miracle had somehow broken. The man laughs awkwardly.

“I am not a man of faith, good sir,” he says. 

Ah. Well, that’s never really been a problem, but it _is_ a problem in that the man wouldn’t know how to directly contact the Almighty of his own choice, then. 

Gabriel’s never been one to dally. Efficiency is heavenly, after all, so he smiles again and is about to wipe the man’s memory of the past hour or so, when the door suddenly opens as the receptionist lets in an _oh very important appointment, so sorry, sir, this absolutely can’t wait._

He doesn’t even need to turn to know who it is. He can hear the heavy thud of their platform shoes. 

“ _Heavens,_ you really don’t know how to pull your own weight, do you?” Beelzebub says, moving to stand next to him. 

“Resourcefulness,” he repeats. 

Beelzebub only tuts and turns their attention to the rather confused human who can’t believe he’d forgotten not one but _two_ appointments today, when he could have sworn he’d had none at all until the end of the week. 

“Hello, sir,” they start. “My name is Belle Zebub, and - ”

“He’s not a man of faith,” Gabriel says, just to see whatever hopes Beelzebub had crushed. 

He sees their hands clench. 

The human starts to lean forward, like any other confused human about to ask a question would be expected to. “I - I’m really going to have to ask what your appointments are, I can’t seem to - ”

Beelzebub snaps their fingers. The man slumps back into his chair, asleep. 

“He’ll wake up in five minutes, don’t smite me,” they say, already heading for the door. Gabriel walks past them as soon as they have it open, and quickly moves out the way when they nearly slam it close while he’s still in the process of getting through the doorway. 

He’s considering whether or not it’ll really be worth it to visit the last place, especially since Beelzebub had just crossed out an entire town, when he hears loud, angry stomping behind him.

“The _treaty,_ Beelzebub,” he reminds, stepping to the side to avoid them. They match his pace instead. 

“I can’t _wait_ for the next scheduled apocalypse,” they say, “I’m going to tear your throat out.”

“I think threats count as a breach, don’t they?”

“Are you bleeding, newsboy?” 

He presses his lips to a thin line. The nicknames are getting tiring. 

“No. So stop invoking the treaty,” they say. “Bloody angels, I swear to Lucifer himself.”

If Gabriel flinches, he doesn’t let it show more than he needs to. Not that Beelzebub notices, of course. 

“Look,” Beelzebub says, moving in front of him to cut him off. He stops, but levels them with an unamused stare. “You can get out of my way entirely - ”

“You’re the one blocking the path.”

“ - or we ignore each other like adults instead of squabbling like children every time we see each other. I have work to be done and places to be, so if we can agree on this and be on our way, it would go much better for the both of us.”

Gabriel snorts. 

Beelzebub frowns. _“What.”_

“Sensible people will see trouble coming and avoid it,” he says. 

“And?”

“And - I’m an _angel,_ Beelzebub, I don’t argue with demons,” he says.

“You - you are _arguing_ with me right now, you moron,” they say, hand twitching like it wants to bury itself into the crevices of his skull. Instead they run said hand over their face, turn around for a minute so they don’t have to see him, and let out a long-suffering sigh. “Alright. Okay. Let’s assume you’re not arguing. What are you doing?”

“Firstly, I saw an opportunity laid out before me, and I took it,” he says, smiling when they rolls their eyes behind their glasses. “Secondly, I am acting on said opportunity. If I happen to run into you, it is only with the intention to stop you from spreading evil.”

“Except I can’t spread evil, because we have an agreement; we both signed it, even,” they say, “We’re arguing.”

“You’re arguing. I’m not. You’re agitated, and I’m perfectly fine,” he says, spreading his arms out to make his point .”Patience incarnate.”

“Bastard incarnate you mean,” they say. Then they sigh, shaking their head, and continue down the hallway. “Answer not a fool according to his folly, lest thou also be like unto him.”

Gabriel leans back a little. _“Excuse_ me?”

“You heard me,” Beelzebub says. “Solomon was onto something, yeah?”

“I am not a _fool!”_

“Really? Could have _fooled_ me, big boy, you could certainly win an award for acting like one,” they say. 

Gabriel speedwalks down the hallway to catch up with them. “I could write you up for this.”

“A bruised pride doesn’t equal a physical bruise,” they say. 

“An insult to an angel might.”

“You know we play _Pin The Hot Poker Iron On The Angel_ downstairs?” they ask, and he actually pauses. They snort. “Yeah, too late for that. And we know you don’t quite like us.” They stop in their steps so they can point between themself and him. “That’s why we need a war, Gabriel.”

Well, he’d known that the demons hated them, and it’s not really that big of a surprise they’re doing that, but it’s disconcerting to be told that to his face. He follows them, not because he wants to, but because the exit is the same way as they’re heading.

The silence between them is tense. Every single human that passes by them, which isn’t a lot since the children are now outside playing, makes sure to get out of their vicinity like they’re avoiding a ticking bomb.

Finally, when they reach the doorway, Beelzebub stops again, as they reach it first. 

Expecting them to talk, Gabriel halts. 

Beelzebub lifts a finger. “Leave me alone - ” and then another  “ - or we ignore each other for the whole time we’re here. You have to pick one.”

“Why don’t _you?”_

“Because I’ve been trying to avoid you this whole time, and you keep being the one to start the conversation. Now choose.”

He weighs his options. Both yield the result of being blind to the enemy’s tactics, and on the off-chance they figure out the Ineffable Plan first, then Gabriel would have made a costly mistake. 

Gabriel is capable, yes. He’s smart, like any angel is smart, and he’s efficient, like any angel is efficient. But Beelzebub is also of angelic stock. Sure, they’ve got new features, like the flies and all, and they’ve shred their old name (he can’t actually remember what it was before) but the capacity to do most things angels can do is still there. They’re smart like any angel is smart, and they’re efficient, otherwise they wouldn’t have been appointed to run Hell. 

Gabriel is capable, but so is Beelzebub. And he _knows_ this. Any good soldier knows to not underestimate the enemy, and for all Gabriel says and constantly reminds others that good will always triumph and evil will always sow the seeds of its own destruction, he also remembers the First War; he remembers the amount of blood on the floor, the graces blazing into ashes, and the wings marred and broken ugly by violence. He was there. It’s why he’s an _Archangel,_ the title, not the rank. 

(If he recites ‘good will always triumph and evil sows the seeds of its own destruction’ over and over and over until the words stop feeling like words to tamp down the fear that comes with the memory of holding a sword for the first time in his existence, no one ever has to know.)

So, like any good, sensible angel, he would be an actual fool to turn a blind eye to whatever Beelzebub is doing. Not even angels know what the Ineffable Plan is. It’s free game. He doesn’t have the odds stacked in his favor just because he’s still got his holiness and his grace, the odds are just stacked, and if Beelzebub gets over them first, it’s game over.

“No,” he says.

Beelzebub sighs. “I hate you.”

“That’s not news.”

Beelzebub turns around and pushes the front door open, muttering, “I hate you, I hate you, _I hate you so much.”_

Deciding it’s a good time as any to shake himself from his morbid musings, he moves in step with them. “So, the village you crossed a large X over, what specifically are you looking for?”

“If you think I’m going to tell you, you’re more of an idiot than I thought.”

“I’ll just follow you.”

“Why can’t I smite you? That’s rhetorical, shut your blessed mouth.”

He snickers, already feeling much better. In the distance, he hears the sputtering of an engine. 

Beelzebub suddenly stops. So does he. 

They can see the parking lot from where they are, and in the parking lot, there is a black Bentley that should have been destroyed for driving through fire and _being_ on fire, but is fine anyway due to the whim of a rather unruly, prophecy-defying boy who just happened to be the Antichrist.

“This day keeps getting better and better,” Beelzebub says. 

The car door opens. A man-shaped being with pretty white curls gets out, and when the other car door opens, another man-shaped being steps out as well, this one with short red hair. 

“Why are they here?” Gabriel asks.

“Do I care?” Beelzebub is already turning on their heel and walking away from the parking lot. When they notice Gabriel hasn’t moved, they spare a glance back to him. _“Newsboy,_ get a move on!”

“Neither of them are part of Heaven or Hell anymore,” he says, “I see no harm running into them.”

“They’re in association with the Antichrist, I think that’s something,” they say. “If you want to get thought out of existence for trying to mess with his favorite angel and demon, be my blessed guest. That’s one answer to my problem.”

A thought surfaces in Gabriel’s mind. He can almost hear the _ting!_ of a comical lightbulb.

He starts walking towards Aziraphale and Crowley, and Beelzebub actually stops in surprise and hisses, mostly out of disbelief that a creature so stupid can exist. _“What are you doing?”_

He doesn’t answer. It wouldn’t be good to give the enemy any hint as to his own operations. They wanted him to move on his own ideas anyway. 

Maybe, just maybe, if there’s anyone who can figure out how to contact the Almighty, it could be them. They’ve managed the near-impossible before, working together long enough and not smiting each other, stopping the apocalypse, befriending the Antichrist. Hell, they might be able to put a good word for him with the Antichrist. Maybe the kid has answers. Maybe the kid can call his grandmother.

It’ll be worth asking if they know what the Ineffable Plan is all about, anyway.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> What's better than this? Dumbasses being dumbasses.
> 
> \- 
> 
> writing blog: https://inkteacup.tumblr.com/  
> artblog: https://almostsweetangel.tumblr.com/  
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	4. But The Lord Directs His Steps

 

Beelzebub has seen their fair share of stupid. They work in Hell, after all, and majority of the souls that landed there often had stupid in spades. 

Most of them found it hard to grasp the concept of accountability, that actions always had consequences, and so even if they’d gone on a murder spree to kill a couple of perfectly innocent people and then later woken up to find themselves en route to the pits (after enduring several centuries worth of a line to get there, and after doing the paperwork where they lost a few fingers for fingerprint stamping), they were suddenly ‘innocent’ and ‘didn’t belong here’.

Humans. Stupid, thick-headed little twits with next to no concept of imputability. Beelzebub can never see the appeal of them, but somehow that idiot Crowley had decided to throw away loyalty (not that Hell valued the general kind very much, but they did value a very specific kind) for these little mudbabies whose lifetimes lasted for less than a century. 

Less than a century and they could already fit so much sin into it. Sure, there was a bit of tempting here and there, but Beelzebub is far from stupid and there’s like seven billion of the buggers now with only one permanent agent up on Earth, and only a couple of demons on long-term missions, like Legion and Mamon. They did send other demons up occasionally, but there’s only ten million of them in total, and three-fourths of them did paperwork and torture downstairs. Doing the math isn’t hard. 

And recently, they’d just found out that Crowley just took credit for some of the demonic things that humans came up with themselves, so there’s that too. 

The truth to their punishment to being demons, Beelzebub thinks, is not the fact that they’d been booted out of Heaven and now live in a stinkhole of officework, brimstone and fire, but rather the fact that they’re wasting their goddamn time. Humans are so efficient in making their lives and the lives of their fellow humans an actual, living hell that there’s really no need for demons at all. They’re demons in themselves, so the fact that Beelzebub and the others are playing officemates and writing up reports and trying to tempt them is just redundant and utterly useless.

Which is actually incredibly insulting. The thought makes them bristle because _they had been an angel once, they had all been angels once,_ and now - what were they, footnotes to the universe because nobody actually needed them since humanity was a right mess on its own?

But that’s not the point right now, and there’s no need to be angry over the mercilessness of Heaven and the baffling stupidity of humans. Right now, they’re floored by the fact that these two qualities got swapped and instead they’re witnessing the baffling stupidity of Heaven’s Messenger. 

Here is the situation: according to reports from Legion, the principality Aziraphale is immune to Hellfire. The principality Aziraphale is also no longer associated with Heaven, although strangely enough, he hasn’t Fallen. This reads, to every demon in existence: very hard to kill enemy. Here is the other situation, as witnessed by Beelzebub themself: the demon Crowley is immune to holy water, and is no longer associated with Hell. Cross-checking this with a report that a mourning Hastur had given, Crowley is also not above killing other demons with holy water, and given his association with the angel, it’s not hard to connect how he’d have a supplier for it. This reads, to Beelzebub: traitorous flash bastard who will kill to continue existing.

Here is the other, other situation: Both of them are friends with the Antichrist.

Now, Beelzebub is not a coward. They’re a Prince of Hell, for Satan’s sake. They are, however, smart, and they know that most likely, Gabriel talking to either of the rogue agents would probably result in some level of smiting, and if Beelzebub stood around there, they would just get dragged in a fight even when they’re smart enough to leave well enough alone because it’s not like either of the idiots are doing anything to get in Hell’s way. Beelzebub is more than happy to take detours if it meant it was the smart decision rather than stick to any sort of blusterous pride that got a demon killed. 

Gabriel, as they had guessed, doesn’t appear to not have this sort of self-preservation instinct.

Instead, while Beelzebub disperses in a swarm of flies that scatter around and give them numerous angles to watch the whole thing (demons don’t functions like humans, after all) Gabriel instead stands right where he is, and tries for a welcoming smile as Aziraphale and Crowley come close. 

Crowley, sauntering around like his legs are made of barely-cooled off gelatin, stops. He has a box of something in his arms, and he looks like he wants to drop it to fistfight Gabriel, which Beelzebub can’t fault him for. Given how his limbs are occupied, he hisses instead.

Aziraphale just awkwardly shifts in his posture, not wanting to seem rude, but also incredibly uncomfortable with the sight of Gabriel, which Beelzebub also cannot fault him for, as Gabriel looks like one of the door-to-door salesmen frozen on the road to Hell, with that creepy many-toothed smile on his face.

“Aziraphale,” Gabriel greets. “And the demon Crowley.”

“You have two seconds to bugger off,” Crowley says. 

Aziraphale, also with a box in his arms, adjusts his hold so he can gently put a hand on Crowley’s shoulder, placating. Smart angel. A fight wouldn’t do anyone any good right now.

A nearby fly on the ground catches Crowley’s low hiss of _“He told you to shut your stupid mouth and die.”_

Ah. Classic Gabriel.

Aziraphale’s posture softens. He smiles at Crowley, fond, before turning his attention to Gabriel.

“Gabriel,” he greets, a little awkwardly. “To what do we owe the pleasure of this visit?”

“I was just stopping by, actually, when I saw you,” Gabriel says. “I thought it would be nice to check in with you.”

“Right,” Crowley says.

Aziraphale sighs. “For what, Gabriel?” he asks, “You don’t just ‘check in’. You’ve never done a courtesy call before.”

“Why not start now?”

“You’re a terrible liar,” Crowley mutters.

Gabriel frowns slightly. “Angels don’t lie.”

Crowley just snickers. 

“Alright, now.” Aziraphale steps in before anything can happen. “We’re just delivering donations from the children, Gabriel. That’s all.”

“The children?”

“The Them,” Aziraphale says, and then remembers Gabriel (and Beelzebub) has no idea what he’s talking about. “Oh! Adam, Pepper, Wensley and Brian.”

“Ah, the children at the airbase,” Gabriel says. “They’re here?”

“With us on vacation. Adam’s idea, you know how he is.” 

Gabriel doesn’t, in fact know how Adam is, and neither does Beelzebub, but Aziraphale plows on. 

“The children’d thought to gather some of the luggage they’d brought with them, along with some trinkets they’d bought to drop it off here. They’re absolute darlings.” Aziraphale beams, proud. “They did want to go to a fair today, and it’s the last day it’s going to be open, so we offered to drop this off here.”

“You know, funny how a couple of children can think to do your jobs better than you,” Crowley says, grinning.

Aziraphale turns to him, exasperated. _“Crowley, dear.”_

“Sorry, couldn’t help it.”

“The Antichrist is predisposed to charity?” Gabriel asks.

“He’s a lovely boy, Gabriel,” Aziraphale says. He looks like he’s about to say more but catches himself before he can do it. “If you’re checking in, then that’s all we’re up to.”

“I see,” Gabriel says, and doesn’t move from where he’s standing.

“Well?” Crowley asks, raising an eyebrow.

“Ah.” Gabriel says, and - he looks nervous. He looks _nervous?_ He looks nervous. 

Beelzebub wonders if having too many eyes all over the place is making their vision go funny. 

“What is it?” Crowley asks, impatient.

“Gabriel,” Aziraphale says, sighing. “What is this really about?”

“I - ” he starts, hesitates, then. “I have a question. Perhaps several.”

“Hmm,” Crowley says.

“We’ll see if we can answer them, then,” Aziraphale says, glancing at Crowley for a moment. He nods. The angel turns back to Gabriel. “What is it?”

Gabriel dithers. He looks down at the ground, like he’s unsure of his words. Then, finally, he asks. “Do you happen to know how to contact the Almighty?”

Beelzebub nearly pops back into humanoid form out of surprise.

Crowley’s other eyebrow joins the one already raised.

Aziraphale blinks. “I beg your pardon?”

“Do you happen to know how to contact the Almighty?” Gabriel asks, a little more smoothly than the first time.

“Well,” Aziraphale says, clicking his tongue. _“Well.”_

“We don’t,” Crowley says.

“I certainly tried to get a word in with Her,” Aziraphale says, “When all that business with Armageddon was going on. I got an answer from the Metatron instead.”

Gabriel expression settles into a frown. 

Aziraphale almost looks pitying.

“Have a try at it?” he suggests, although it comes out unsure. “Perhaps you’ll have better luck than me, you’re an Archangel, after all.”

“Where is Adam Young?” he asks instead.

One of Beelzebub’s flies moves closer, just on the ground right next to Gabriel.

“Why?” Aziraphale asks, tone suddenly dropping to icy. 

Huh. Angel of the Eastern Gate indeed.

Gabriel raises both hands up, placating, but not afraid. “Now, now,” he says, “I don’t wish him any harm. I just want to ask if he has a way to contact Her.”

“Why do you want to contact the Almighty, anyway?” Crowley asks. “Can’t you just pray?”

“All prayers are received in the Request Center in Heaven,” Gabriel says. Crowley mutters out a little, “Wait, what.” but it’s mostly drowned out by Gabriel continuing, “At least, most of them are. Some, apparently, aren’t.”’

“What do you mean?” Aziraphale asks.

Gabriel sighs and folds his hands behind him. “There are certain...matters in Heaven that need to be addressed,” he says. Beelzebub knows exactly what these are. “My work is here is not to bother you. I’m just here to find answers.”

“Yeah, well, we don’t have them,” Crowley says. He walks past Gabriel, and Beelzebub makes sure to get all flies in the way out of there before any of them can get crushed under his shoes. Aziraphale follows him, giving Gabriel a respectful nod as they both pass by him.

Right before they reach the door, Gabriel says, “Aziraphale.”

Both of them stop anyway.

“Yes, Gabriel?” Aziraphale asks.

Gabriel turns around to face him. “By any chance, would you be willing to let me see the Antichrist?”

The softness fades away from Aziraphale’s face again, replaced instead by a blankness that makes Beelzebub think that, could this angel have Fallen with them, they would have had a rather formidable Prince on their side.

“No,” he says. Then he turns and opens the door to the orphanage, and gets inside.

Crowley, smiling, flips Gabriel the bird before following him in.

Gabriel scowls, but wipes the look off his face in a few seconds, and Beelzebub can nearly hear the gears tick around his head as they turn. They run his wording over and over again in their head, because, see, while angels don’t lie (they can, and some of them do, but they’re just prissy about it sometimes), they are very, very good with words, and constructing them together so they can have plausible deniability. 

_Would you be willing to let me see the Antichrist_ can be read as several things - two of these can be requesting permission, another can be a request for help. None of these barricade Gabriel from actually going to see the Antichrist should he wish it. He doesn’t need permission to see the Antichrist, and he doesn’t need Aziraphale’s help in seeing the Antichrist either, he’d only been checking to see if he would give it.

The Antichrist might not know how to contact the Almighty, but he if he wished it, he might be able to.

Beelzebub doesn’t stay to see what else Gabriel does. Instead, they gather, flies condensing in a swarm behind the building, faster than flies should be able to gather. They’re barely humanoid before they stretch their incorporeal wings and take off, searching for Adam Young, knowing that Gabriel is following close behind.

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I genuinely forgot I updated last week so I was like, wait which chapter am I uploading today? Time isn't real, babes.
> 
> Artblog: https://almostsweetangel.tumblr.com/  
> Writing blog: https://inkteacup.tumblr.com/  
> Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/teacupchaos/  
> Twitter: https://twitter.com/angelteasugar


	5. Raise Heaven Bend Hell

Finding the Antichrist is a lot more difficult than people would think it to be, at least those who have never actually tried to find the Antichrist before. Like Beelzebub, as it had never been in the Great Plan to find the Antichrist. 

All that they had been supposed to do was assign someone to deliver the Antichrist to Earth when after he was born, keep tabs on the boy to make sure nothing had happened to him (not that anything really could, but you know, making sure), and then get all the demons ready for the Great War. 

They’d done a stellar job on all points, really, had it not been for Crowley’s bumbling around. 

But the good thing is that Aziraphale had mentioned that he was with his friends, and so while it is hard to find the Antichrist, it is not particularly hard to find the three other humans he usually hung out with, and much easier to find a hellhound stationed on earth to accompany a young boy. 

Beelzebub finds them in a fair, just like Aziraphale had said. The whole thing is actually quite lovely; loud and crowded just like Hell is but none of the dreariness that usually pollutes the air there. It’s the lively sort of loud and the fun sort of crowded, although it’s interspersed with the annoyance of some of the stall workers and a few tired parents. 

They can see why Crowley had taken credit for this, even if the humans probably made the whole thing up themselves. The stalls scam people and the games are all rigged, just to rake in money, so that’s a point for greed. Customers are rude to workers and take their frustrations out on them, so that’s a point for wrath. People who are supposed to be at work are spending their time here instead, so that’s an argument for sloth. The kids who buy more food than they can eat, and who eat more than what their stomachs can take therefore leading them to getting sick, a point for gluttony. The place is a cesspool for low-grade evil that’s churned out day after day, which is exactly Crowley’s style.

Beelzebub wonders idly, if Crowley had learned from the humans, or if he’d evolved his ways to suit their progress. The humans really don’t need them around, and they most certainly don’t need Crowley to push them to sin, as they do everything themselves and the more time Beelzebub spends up here, the more irritated they are at the realization. 

They slip out from behind the tent they’d landed in and smooth out their jacket, lowering their glasses onto their face. All the way across them, from where Wensleydale is currently somehow beating a rigged game with quick calculations, Adam Young is watching with rapt, entertained attention.

They think about their approach, for a moment. They’ve never had the impression that they’re in any way good with kids, but they know the basics on how to approach them: don’t be rude because that scares most of them off or just makes them rude back, dangle a carrot in front of them and watch them run, and speak nicely even if you’re the furthest thing from nice. That’s not going to work on the Them, much less Adam Young, but, well, there’s not a lot of angles to deal with the situation. 

If they stroll up to him with no good explanation at hand, and only appear to be orchestrating the end of the world again, he’ll likely wipe them out of existence. If they ask him where the Almighty is, and he doesn’t know how to contact Her, then he’ll probably not help because then he’ll know something’s up. They’re going to need him to either spill the answer or extend his help and bend reality to his will out of the goodness of his heart (because he sadly has both), not knowing that he’s helping Beelzebub.

How? Would a simple disguise work? They look a lot more human than they had the last time they’d been on earth, and they’d mostly done that  to avoid stares from strangers (less holdups that way, in case someone tried to drag them to a priest to get blessed) so maybe he won’t recognize them with the glasses, but he’ll still be able to look past Beelzebub’s corporation and realize who they are. Possessing someone isn’t going to help and would just disgust him. Getting a new corporation to act like a poor human who needs the guidance of a higher authority still won’t work since again, he’d just see through it.

Maybe they can get another human to do it? Bribe them or threaten them to do some dramatics in front of Adam Young on the - for a lack of better term - Hail Mary pass of a chance that he’d help? 

There’s that too, the fact that this is a hell of a Hail Mary pass of a chance. Sure, they’d immediately latched onto the idea that Adam Young would be a way to know the Ineffable Plan, but it’s in the same way that some people get an epiphany, rush into the epiphany because it’s a solution to a longtime problem and also they’re racing against a jackass who happens to be their hereditary enemy, and then realize that there’s still several steps more to go before everything is solved and the epiphany is just that, an epiphany. 

Just because the boy _could_ didn’t mean he _would._ Beelzebub doesn’t have any leverage against him and any leverage they did have wouldn’t be enough since the boy could sneeze and everything with flesh could have their skin and muscles turned inside out if he wanted them to.

Ahead, Wensleydale pops another balloon with a well-aimed throw. The kids gathered around the Them cheer. Brian whoops and drops most of his icecream on his shirt. 

Adam Young, very subtly, freezes. 

So does Beelzebub.

The young boy turns to the side, slowly. Dog, at his feet, suddenly stands to attention and snarls. 

Beelzebub moves back behind the tent they’d been peeking from, as silent as they can manage it.  They know they look weird to anyone who would glance at them right now, but risking spreading out a small sliver of disfavour (they absolutely refuse to call it grace - it’s not grace when they no longer affiliated with Heaven or Her) to turn everyone’s gazes away from them might catch Adam’s attention before they’ve fully thought up a plan on how to proceed.

Slowly, he walks off, and Beelzebub feels their wings, incorporeal, relax and lower from where they’d been flared. They watch him as they make their way through the crowd, careful, Dog padding by his side on alert like the guardian he had been meant to be. His friends don’t appear to notice he’s gone off.

Beelzebub looks away. Should they follow him, or should they think of a better way to approach the situation first? It’s not like they can’t find him. When the Them and the Idiots Two are done with their vacation, the children are going to return to Tadfield and the Idiots are going back to - where are they living now again - right, South Downs. Beelzebub knows where to find them when they’re done here. They don’t need to rush into things, they have to have a strategy.

Around them, suddenly, the world shifts. 

It’s a subtle shift. Really, it’s not a shift at all, because nothing is moved out of place. Nothing is moved. 

Beelzebub closes their eyes as all the noise of the universe grinds to a halt. The fair has frozen with its people standing in place like wax figures in a museum; the earth stills in its orbit; the stars cease burning up tons upon tons of gas, the crackling hum of each of them suddenly muted even when everyone’s mostly tuned those out. 

The silence is actually defeaning, when _everything_ isn’t making any noise anymore.

“Come on out,” Adam Young says, calm, but with the steady authority that he’s always had. Oh, wasted potential. 

Dog sits beside him, patient as he is.

Deciding that there’s not much to be done when the entire universe has been frozen into a three-dimensional still image, Beelzebub steps out from behind the tent and carefully weaves their way through all the bodies around them. Angering the Antichrist, no matter how great it would feel to just shove the humans aside, would not work in their favor right now. 

Hell is likely frozen too. No one’s even gonna know if they’re smited off the face of the earth. 

As they near Adam, they notice someone else walking through the crowds, tall enough that Beelzebub doesn’t even need to look over people’s shoulders to know who it is. 

Of course he’d immediately caught up. Ah, well, at least they’re both going to have to talk their way out of this together. Beelzebub hates him, but there’s always some comfort in knowing you’re not alone when you have to go through something rather harrowing.

Adam Young stares up at them both as they stop in front of him. 

“Adam Young,” Gabriel says.

“Lord Beelzebub, I think,” Adam says, nodding to Beelzebub, who inclines their head back. “And Gabriel.”

Dog whines a little.

Adam laughs. “He wants someone to greet him.”

Gabriel...smiles very tightly and very slowly. Beelzebub kicks his foot. 

“No, _you_ do it,” he hisses, which only gets him another kick. 

Adam patiently waits for both of them to settle their tiny, not-very-subtle squabble.

Finally, Beelzebub says, “Hello...Dog.”

They get a happy tail wag for that. 

“So,” Adam says. “What brings both of you here? I’m sure you know my stance on the end of the world.”

“We do,” Gabriel says, “We’re not here about that.”

“And we’re not collaborating with each other either,” Beelzebub points out.

“Simply coincidentally assigned on small errands at the same time,” Gabriel says.

Adam hums. After a pause, he asks, “What are you here for, then?”

Gabriel and Beelzebub share a glance, not out of any innate synchronicity, but out of an actual simple coincidence. 

“Well,” Beelzebub says, “Like he said, small errands.” They motion to how they look. “Otherwise, I wouldn’t have bothered looking like I’m human.”

“How small?”

“Nothing to be alarmed about,” they say.

“Heaven and Hell actually have a peace treaty right now,” Gabriel says. “We cannot incite violence with each other.”

Yeah, which is going well with both of them, but as long as no one dies, both sides will likely be lenient. Besides, they’re Beelzebub and Gabriel, they helped draft the whole damn treaty in the first place.

“Oh,” Adam says, relaxing a little. “That’s good. So just messing people about then?” He frowns at that, like he’s just realized something about it.

“No,” Gabriel says, to stop him before his thoughts go somewhere that’ll end up with both of them disappearing with a snap. “We’re not here for either wiling or thwarting.”

Since Adam would be able to tell if either of them are lying or not, Beelzebub decides to keep their mouth shut and let Gabriel do the talking. He’s a priss about angels not lying after all, he’s got this.

Beelzebub pauses.

Wait.

Adam smiles innocently, knowing exactly when the realization comes to Beelzebub’s mind.

“First, before you get mad,” the boy says, raising his hands up in surrender, which is funny considering, well. “I just wanted to hear you say it.”

“And why’s that?” Beelzebub asks. Beside them, Gabriel closes his eyes and looks away as he too, comes to the same realization. 

“You hear a lot in what people aren’t saying when they’re making excuses,” he says, stuffing his hands in his pockets, the rigidity in his posture gone, his hunch back. “So - the Ineffable Plan?”

“And all it entails,” Gabriel says. “What do you know about it?”

“Why would I tell you?” he asks, although it’s playful. 

Gabriel sighs. 

“Earth is my home,” he says, “And it’s my friends’ home. I’m not going to help destroy it.”

“It’s not - it’s not to destroy it,” Gabriel says, even when it’s through gritted teeth. “We’re not here to destroy earth.”

That’s - that’s not a lie, technically. They’re not here to destroy earth, they’re here to figure out the Ineffable Plan, which Adam Young isn’t going to tell them about, obviously, since it’s going to involve the destruction of his home, so this is also, unfortunately, a bust. 

Beelzebub doesn’t want to sulk, but they can already feel like they’re going to, anyway.

“The last time you were down here - well, you, up here - ” Adam motions to Beelzebub. “ - you told me to start the apocalypse and begin the war.”

“Aziraphale tried to shoot you,” Beelzebub says flatly.

Adam winces and scratches his cheek.

Gabriel blinks. He turns to them. “I think I missed that.”

“Dagon wrote a report for the apocalypse and cross-checked between sources. Apparently, Aziraphale tried to shoot him.”

“Oh.”

“Well, I can’t deny that,” Adam says. He hesitates over his next few words, and then shrugs. “I got nothing to defend him.”

Beelzebub snorts.

“Point here is, though, the last time you were here, you wanted me to destroy the earth,” he says, “Not really a big surprise if I think you’re here to do it again.”

“No, I suppose not,” Beelzebub says. 

They need to convince Adam Young not on the ‘destroying the world’ part - because that’s going to come eventually, because there _has_ to be a war, after all - but on the figuring out the Ineffable Plan part. That wouldn’t be a lie. And it _is_ what they’re here for. Not a war, not yet, just the Plan.

“Look,” Beelzebub tries, “We’re here to figure out the Ineffable Plan, that’s all.”

Adam raises an eyebrow. “And destroy the world.”

“Just to figure out the Ineffable Plan,” Beelzebub says, because that’s just it, and they need to believe their own lie - no, not even lie - first for it to be convincing. “That’s all. We have a treaty, we can’t attack each other, we haven’t attacked each other, and we’ve been here for days.”

Gabriel appears to have caught on, because he says, “Part of our treaty is to not meddle with humans as well.”

“See?” Beelzebub asks, before Adam can pick that apart. “Under the treaty, neither Heaven nor Hell is to incite violence with each other, unless of course it is self-defense, and the first attacking party will be charged of breaking the treaty and be punished accordingly. Earth and humanity is off-limits.” They don’t add the part that it’s only because one side might use it against the other as a loophole. “We are only here to figure out the Ineffable Plan.”

“And,” Gabriel says, “We don’t even _know_ what the Ineffable Plan _is_. That’s why we have to figure it out.” He’s hamming up the theatrics now,  exaggerating facial expressions to make up for the flimsy argument.

“For all we know,” Beelzebub says, picking up on his point and running blindly with it, “The Ineffable Plan might not even include a war.”

When children are young, guardians, and every other book on safety they’d read, would tell them not to run with scissors, and for obvious reasons. If they drop the scissor, they could hurt their feet. If they trip and the scissors are pointed at them, they could hurt themselves. If they bump into someone else and the scissors are pointed outwards, they could stab them 

They’re dangerous weapons, but also very, very useful items. They’re used in crafts all the time. Some specialized scissors are used in the preparation of food. They’re a necessity for the tailoring of the clothes Gabriel so loves. They can be used to prune and trim a garden. 

They’re like knives, although - well, they’re kind of just two knives pasted together, if one really thinks about it, but the thing here is that, scissors and knives aren’t one thing or another, they’re tools. Most things are. Spoons are used for feeding but also scooping out eyeballs. Pens are used for writing but also for seriously injuring someone’s ear. The ability to get thoughts out can be used to give praise or to tear someone down.

Critical thinking is an angel and a demon’s pair of scissors. 

Beelzebub has just started running with one.

“It’s the Ineffable Plan,” they say, word-vomiting. “Ineffable. We don’t know exactly what it is.”

Gabriel is looking at them with an odd look on his face, but they barely give it a glance, because Adam Young has lit up, like he too, has realized something, and Beelzebub has just gotten his attention. 

Which is exactly what they need.

“If we really wanted a war,” Beelzebub says, “We would have ignored the fact that you didn’t want to lead the apocalypse. Think about it. If Aziraphale and Crowley could just go around earth and do whatever they wanted, why wouldn’t we be able to? Why would we strike a treaty instead, put everything on hold, and just try to figure out something that’s bothering us?”

“It’s not always a bad thing,” Gabriel says, although his focus is more on being confused at what Beelzebub is saying instead of supporting their nonsense to get Adam Young to offer his help. “It’s like one of Aziraphale’s...uh...books,” he says, a little uncertain, “Some of them are about mysteries.”

“Imagine if you’ve been told your whole life that you’re about one thing,” Beelzebub says, and this is steadier ground for them, so they’re able to get their thoughts out easier. “And then it turns out it’s something completely different, wouldn’t you want to figure it out when you realize you _can?”_

When you run with scissors pointed at you and you trip, you stab yourself.

“Well, when you put it that way,” Adam says, putting a hand to his chin in thought, a certain light in his eyes. “That does make sense.”

“We’re more than six thousand years old, Adam,” Beelzebub says, “And in all that time, we’ve been trying to follow the The Great Ineffable Plan, thinking it’s one thing, and it turns out it’s not.”

And it’s like getting the ground pulled out from under you, they think, so suddenly that it actually makes the trainwreck of their thoughts still.

It is like getting the ground pulled out from under you, like you have been taught: _we are love and we are light and we are forgiveness,_ and it turns out those were big fat lies. And then you think: _we are hate and we are darkness and we are resentment,_ and in a way, you forge it to be truth, because otherwise you wouldn’t have anything else to hold on to.

“That would mess you up quite badly, wouldn’t it?” Adam says. There’s a certain softness in his eyes when he says that. Beelzebub glances to Gabriel just to look away from it. 

“Exactly,” Gabriel says, although he doesn’t sound very convinced. He does know that Beelzebub’s just successfully reeled Adam Young in, and he’d be a fool to let this out of his grasp. “It’s just figuring out the Ineffable Plan, whatever that may be.” He makes sure to put emphasis on the last part.

Dangerous things, scissors.

Adam Young, with a glint of mischief in his eyes, smiles.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Accidental braincell hours.
> 
> Also, he's not in the chapter but I keep transmuting characteristics from book Aziraphale to show Aziraphale, it's a mess.
> 
> artblog: https://almostsweetangel.tumblr.com/  
> writing blog: https://inkteacup.tumblr.com/  
> instagram: https://www.instagram.com/teacupchaos/  
> twitter: https://twitter.com/angelteasugar


	6. Ye Of Little Faith

“I have a bad feeling about him,” Aziraphale says.  

Crowley snorts. “That's no surprise, everyone does, I think.”

“I know,” Aziraphale says, although it's with a wince that says no, he doesn't really, or if he does, it's not without guilt. “I meant… a _bad-_ bad feeling, as Adam would say.”

“Isn't that also expected from Gabriel?” Crowley asks, but then sighs. “Yeah, what's he doing on Earth?”

“And looking for Adam too.” Aziraphale leans back in the seat, thinking.  

No, that wasn't quite right. Gabriel had been at the orphanage and _then_ he'd asked for Adam. It was more likely that the boy had been a second thought and that he'd had business in the orphanage first.  

“Did anything in the orphanage seem off to you?” Aziraphale asks.  

“Not particularly, no,” Crowley says, “Hellish kids, but that's most kids, isn't it?”

“My dear.”

“What? It's true - Adam for one. _Brian_ , for another. Do you know how many times I've had to clean the backseat of dirt? Too many. Not even a miracle could clean up the mess his shoes drag in.”

“His soles have deep ridges, that's all,” Aziraphale says, smiling at Crowley's poor attempt at masking the fond tone in his voice. “But nothing really stood out to you?”

“No,” Crowley says. “What are you thinking?”

“That maybe he’d had business at the orphanage but none with Adam. At least, not originally,” he says, and sighs, leaning a bit more into his seat. “I trust the boy, but still, I can’t help but worry.”

Crowley hums and floors the gas a bit more. Aziraphale smiles thankfully past his worry.

Still, he does hope nothing’s happened.

 

* * *

 

Beelzebub still hasn't taken off their platform shoes. They've had plenty of time to, walking all the way from the fair and to the cafe after Adam had restarted time - hell, it's been days since they've been on earth, they've had all of that too - but they haven't bothered to change out of their ridiculous outfit. Really, with all the impressive research and assimilation they've done (and they making a point on insisting on ‘acting normal’,  which Gabriel thinks he's an expert at, _thank you very much_ ), one would think they'd spare some time on figuring out their shoes don't go with their jeans.

Boots would be better. Or flats. Hell, even sneakers would be a lot more modern, even if they're horrendous.  

Gabriel isn't about to admit he's doing a bad job at distracting himself.  

Beelzebub slurps their milkshake loudly.  

Gabriel makes a face. Distasteful. “You don’t need to eat, so why are you consuming that?”

“I’m thinking,” Beelzebub says. “And it’s something to do. Besides, it tastes good.”

“Of course, you’re a demon,” he says. The wants of the flesh, including gluttony and all involving it would be pleasing to them.

“What? You’re too good for food?” they ask, unimpressed. “Figures,”

“My body is a temple - ”

“Of incompetency and pompousness.” They punctuate their sentence with a loud slurp. “Look, I don’t have time for you right now, so if you could bugger off somewhere where they tolerate arses like you?”

He gives them an irritated look, but he doesn’t. Adam Young had given them 'advice' on figuring out the Ineffable Plan, and if Beelzebub was going to act on it, then it would be foolish of him to not keep an eye on them.Not that Gabriel trusts Adam Young much, considering he's been hanging around Aziraphale and Crowley, of all people, but they - _he_ is grasping at straws at this point and when he'd thought to ask the boy if he knew anyything, he'd given him something.

Although, perhaps he should keep an eye on the boy for a little while just to see if he's the wily sort who has a tendency for sending people on wild goose chases. Maybe that'll save him time on debating whether or not to take his words at face value.

“Adam Young technically did not tell us to have to work together,” Beelzebub says, bringing Gabriel's thoughts right back around to what the kid had said. “He just said _you._ Could’ave been a singular you, not a plural you.”

"My answer is still no."

Beelzebub presses their lips to a thin line and finishes their milkshake in silence.  

When they’re done, they lean back in their seat, staring at the table, deep in thought. Gabriel knows exactly about what, but he’s not going to be the first one to ask. It is in a demon’s nature to question. That’s why they’d fallen, after all. They’d questioned God, they’d questioned Her Plan, and so they got kicked out of Heaven.  

If Beelzebub questions the Ineffable Plan, that’s not for him to worry about. He’s just here to figure out the when and where, and then he’s getting out of here.

“ _Observe humanity,”_ Beelzebub says, “That’s what he said.”

“I’m not helping you with it.”

“I’m not talking to you, you git,” they say, and reach up to their temples to massage them, closing their eyes. “Not a _which, where_ , or _when_ to be found, just _observe humanity._ And not from afar. Up close, apparently.”

“I’ve done studies on humanity. Most angels have. They’re quite simple creatures, really,” Gabriel says. If they’re not talking to him, he’s not talking to them. IHaving a sounding board is quite nice, anyway. “Very easy to fool. Very easy to grasp the concept of.”

“They’re like demons but without disfavour, so they use what they have,” Beelzebub says. “What’s there to observe?”

Gabriel mulls on that. History, perhaps? Or behavioural habits? Life cycles? Cultures? He knows there’s around seven billion of them and they’re not all the same - is he supposed to find the similarities and the differences?  

“I don’t know anything about the Ineffable Plan,” Adam Young had said. “I reckon it’s called that for a reason, innit?” He’d laughed a little at that. “But I guess, best piece of advice I can give is just - stick around a little. Uh, see the sights. Live around a bit. _Observe humanity,_ I guess you could say, and not like you already do, sitting in your desks and everything with your idea of what humans are. You're just going to keep having your ideas of what humans are because you can choose which parts of us you want to observe and which parts you'd rather turn a blind eye to. Get to know us. _Really_ get to know us.” He’d motioned around, then. “Go to a fair. Ride a car. Feed some ducks in a park. S’what Aziraphale and Crowley do.”

Gabriel had very carefully held his tongue from saying that if that was what Aziraphale and Crowley did, he’d rather be found dead in a ditch.

But - anyway, observe humanity. Stick around a little.  

He knows what that means, but he wants to ask and turn it over again and again to see if it changes, anyway. Couldn't it just be observing them like in a laboratory, or something? One-off interviews? Movies?

He’s not about to stay on Earth any longer than he wants to, but -

Beelzebub is getting up.

“Where are you going?” he asks.

“Observing humanity,” they say. He gets up and tries to follow, but before he can even get out of his seat, he hears the flap of several wings and then Beelzebub is gone.  

Gabriel stills.

He’s just lost the enemy.

 

* * *

 

_Shit shit shit shit shit._  

Beelzebub doesn’t panic a lot, mostly because when you’ve been damned for a very long time, there’s not much you can actually drop further to, and thus not much reason to worry. Whoever had said ‘when you’re at your lowest, there’s nowhere to go but up’ had been full of shit, but they did have a point. When you’re at the lowest, there’s literally nowhere lower to go, because then you wouldn’t be at the _lowest_ point of everything.

But there are things that still shake them up a little, if only for the knowledge that these certains things were dangerous. One, the Great War - which, contrary to popular belief, has no set winner at all. Two, Satan, because really, who wants to piss him off? Three, the Antichrist, wildcard of a boy that he is.

Four, thinking about things they shouldn’t think of.  

Perhaps it’s remaining trauma from being kicked out of Heaven for doing so. Perhaps it’s merely the conditioning of six thousand years in Hell and following orders and doing things Just So, because otherwise Satan was going to be pissed. Perhaps it was because, in actuality, thinking about things one shouldn’t think of is the same as looking the unknown in the eye and trying not to get bitten when it opens its mouth.

Beelzebub is a leader. Beelzebub’s greatest strength comes in the fact that in situations of turmoil, they are able to find a semblance of order, or if there’s none, _forge_ the semblance of order. A semblance of order means structure, and structure means foreknowledge, which means surety and steady ground.  

The unknown is the very opposite of that. The unknown is a catalyst for the wonder that comes with wanting to know.  

They land blindly, folding their wings back into their corporeal body somewhere they don’t know much about save for the fact that it’s not a gaping chasm or a trench, and there’s not a lot of people. They’ve done a good job on not letting Gabriel get much out of them, and they’ve gotten rid of him for now, but if he’s determined to keep an eye on them, they’re going to bump into him sooner or later, so they don’t have much time to themself. They need to get their head straight as soon as possible.

_No war_ for the Ineffable Plan. Preposterous. They need a war. They have to have a war, otherwise, what was the use of having Heaven and Hell in the first place? Angels did their saving and demons did their damning - it was a whole deal and everything. Why wouldn’t there be a war?

It would be a little stupid, though, wouldn’t it, to not think of all possibilities? A good strategist always thinks ahead and thinks of every possible outcome, including the fact that the Ineffable Plan might just be -  

Beelzebub frowns. Stupid would be falling for whatever Adam Young had tried to pull on them. Observe humanity their ass, there’s not much to observe. Humans are flawed and messy and more hellish than they ever could be, and that was the gist of it, even for the few of them that did their best to not be those things.  

To play angel's advocate, humans believed blindly, too. Like in the concepts of goodness, or to be more realistic, decency. Beelzebub's never bought it much. What’s the use of being nice and good when it got you nothing in the end save for being stuck upstairs with a bunch of holier-than-thou prisses? Not much, if they’re asked.  

So there’s that. Misguided faith and a penchant for evil. That’s it. They have it. They don’t know what’s so great about it that Adam Young thought to give them that advice. Just because it worked for Aziraphale and Crowley didn’t mean it would work for them.

Well.

Wait.

Aziraphale and Crowley had been around humans for 6000 years, and if Adam Young's playing a game with them, surely…

Beelzebub shakes their head. Laughable, the idea of even trying to get a second opinion from Heaven and Hell’s greatest messes. They’d rather drink a bottle of holy water than ever try to consult with Crowley on matters.  

They’re just a little confused from overthinking things, that’s all. And Adam Young’s just grown up around humanity that he’s a little biased of it. Of course he’s going to tell them to stick around and watch humanity a little. He hadn’t been there at the beginning. He hadn’t been there when the schism had started and then Heaven had descended to war. He doesn’t know anything.  

Right. Beelzebub straightens out their jacket, determined. There’s no need to be sidetracked just because the Antichrist had been messing with them. They’re better than that.  

They take out their phone from their satchel, and somehow, the wi-fi deadzone they're standing in suddenly finds itself making way for internet connection as Beelzebub pulls up a map. Time to make an actual plan.

 

* * *

 

"Everything alright?" Pepper asks.

"What is?"

"Whatever just happened," she says, motioning around them.  

She's no Antichrist, no angel or demon, but hanging about one of each for quite a while, and surviving the apocalypse after facing the Four Riders head-on (even when her brain is still trying to push the memories of said face-off down every once in a while) does things to one's sensitivity to the supernatural.  

She's not the only one. Even Brian and Wensleydale have it. And once, Newt had paused while watering the garden at the back of Jasmine Cottage and turned to Anathema and said, "I think we're about to have visitors." Thirty minutes later, Crowley and Adam pulled up at the house, racing on muddy, borrowed bikes.

Adam's never felt comfortable trying to 'fix' it, because as far as he knows it's not anything to do with their brains or their bodies. And it's his friends, after all. He wouldn't want anyone messing with him even if he started getting a weird sensitivity to things, not without his permission, and they haven't given him permission to mess them about.  

Brian and Wensleydale turn to him expectantly, at Pepper's questioning. They're all sitting on a bench near the entrance of the fair, waiting to be picked up. Dog has fallen asleep on Adam's lap.

"Ah," Adam says. "Gabriel and Beelzebub were here."

"Don't remember them," Brian says, and turns to the others.

"Me neither," Wensleydale says.

"You didn't miss much," Adam says. "They showed up once to tell me off at the air base."

Brian nods like he knows what Adam is talking about. He doesn't.

"What were they doing here?" Pepper asks.

"Business," Adam says.  

"What sort?"

Adam shrugs. "Dunno," he says. "Reckon it's got something to do with endin' the world again."

"I thought that was done with," Wensleydale says. He frowns, clearly trying to strain for a memory he knows he should remember but can't. "Didn't we do something about that?"

"We did," Adam says. "It's nothing you have to worry about. This is different."

"Did you take care of it?" Pepper asks.

"Not really? They weren't here to end the world, they said," Adam says. "Not that I believe them."

"So why don't we have to worry about it?" Brian tears off a piece of the cotton candy he's eating. Bits of it melt and stain his shirt.  

"'Cause they were actually telling the truth, at least to an extent," Adam says. "They're not here to end the world. They were just trying to - " He searches for his words. "Figure out a plan."

"To end it?"

"I think that's what they want," Adam says, "But what they want and what the Ineffable Plan is, could be very different things."

Pepper nods. She knows what he's talking about. She's heard Aziraphale and Crowley debate over this same topic plenty of times, even when they hadn't meant for her to.  

"I told them to stick around, see the sights," he says, and then lifts a shoulder. "I dunno if they're gonna, but I hope they do."

He really does. He thinks they'd really find earth cool, if they just stuck around long enough to actually learn about it. It's a neat little place, where people make new things every day even if they destroy things some of them sometimes. They make fairs where they rig the games but people still win them. They've got 31 flavors of ice cream somewhere, even if it's not America.

Adam smiles to himself. He doesn't know what Beelzebub and Gabriel are doing, but he hopes they keep going where they're going. He doesn't even need to give them a push, really. The look in Beelzebub's eyes had told him he hadn't needed to do anything at all.

So he just waits with his friends on the bench. Minutes later, the Bentley pulls up by them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Me weeks ago: Haha, crack!  
> Me now: Oh no. I'm invested. Why do I never learn.
> 
> writing blog: https://inkteacup.tumblr.com/  
> artblog: https://almostsweetangel.tumblr.com/  
> twitter: https://twitter.com/angelteasugar  
> artstagram: https://www.instagram.com/teacupchaos/


	7. The Way They Should Go

Crowley knows something is up the second they get to the fair. Stopping time is a little party trick he does often after all, often enough that he knows how the fabric of the universe feels like when someone stops it from spinning, and so when he gets that funny feeling while he’s driving, he knows something has happened. Aziraphale, from how he stills and fidgets in his seat, notices too. 

Figures Adam would take a page out of his book. Not that Crowley is really very fond of books. That’s not the sort of human he’s supposed to be.

He doesn’t need to ask what’s happened, because as soon as they step out of the car, Pepper says, “Gabriel and Beelzebub were here.”

Beside him, Aziraphale closes his eyes and lets out a slow breath through his nose.

“They didn’t do anything,” Adam says, “Just asked about stuff.”

“What sort of stuff?” Crowley asks.

“The Ineffable Plan,” Adam says.

“Already?” Aziraphale turns to Crowley, worried. 

They’d barely had a bit of a break, after all. Crowley had thought that both sides would take some time off and let themselves plan and cool down before the next war, whatever it’s supposed to be, but not this soon. 

“It’s okay,” Adam says. 

Crowley isn’t sure what about Heaven and Hell trying to orchestrate humanity’s doom is okay, but Adam has A Look in his eyes that Crowley has always associated with a mischievous plan in the works, so he raises an eyebrow and asks, “Oh?”

“They said they had a treaty,” he says, “Heaven and Hell have a truce right now, meaning there’s not going to be any fights happening soon. They’re trying to figure out the Ineffable Plan, but that’s all they’re here for. I could tell they were telling the truth.”

“Ah,” Aziraphale says, relaxing a little.

Crowley frowns. “Bit of a stupid move, though, isn’t it?”

“That’s what I was saying,” Wensleydale says, looking to Brian like he’s making a point. “Wouldn’t be the _Ineffable_ Plan if it weren’t completely ineffable.”

“Solves that problem on its own,” Crowley says.

“Unless they get impatient,” Aziraphale says. 

Crowley turns to him. He shifts, uncomfortable, with the little gulp, the looking away and the tilt of his head downward before he speaks. 

“It’s a possibility, you must admit,” Aziraphale says, “It’s Gabriel.”

Okay, fair point. _And_ Beelzebub. Both of them had decided to execute Aziraphale and Crowley on a whim, after all. Who’s to say they wouldn’t just decide to start an apocalypse of their own?

“It is,” Adam admits, and that makes the first flutters of anxiety roil around Crowley’s stomach, but the boy continues, “But I think there’s also a big chance they won’t.”

“Why so?” Crowley asks.

“They were trying to convince me to help them figure out the Ineffable Plan. _Well,_ they tried to ask me about it first, really,” Adam says, “I told them I didn’t know. They tried to convince me to help them talk to God.”

Aziraphale blinks. “Excuse me?”

“If anyone knows the Ineffable Plan, it’s Her,” Crowley says, as it sinks in. “ _Beelzebub_ is trying to find a way to talk to God directly?”

“Beelzebub and Gabriel,” Wensleydale says, “Adam says they were both here.”

“Wait, Gabriel?” Crowley throws Aziraphale a confused look. “Isn’t She in Heaven?”

“I - ” Aziraphale looks uncomfortable again. “Well, we pass messages through the Metatron, and he replies but - he’s not exactly Her, is he?”

True, and knowing how angels worked, they probably just take whatever the Metatron says at face value despite the possibility of him never really speaking to the Almighty before he replies. Maybe they’ve never really spoken to Her, maybe She just speaks to them when She feels like it.

He doesn’t know how Heaven works anymore, barely remembers how it worked the first time, so, who knows?

“So,” Crowley says, “Let’s say even Gabriel doesn’t know how to talk to Her, and he and Beelzebub are trying to figure out the Ineffable Plan, how does this help us?”

“They don’t know how to find Her,” Aziraphale says, “And She just does what She wants, so.”

“And if they throw all that out the window and decide for themselves?”

“Then we’re lucky that Beelzebub is entertaining the idea that the Ineffable Plan might not even involve a war,” Adam says.

Crowley stills. Very slowly, he turns to Aziraphale, who has also turned to him. The children, sitting on the bench, patiently wait for them to speak. 

“Excuse me, Beelzebub?” Crowley asks. “As in - ” He makes a motion towards his head, sketching out the outline of a fly as best as he can, and then flattens out the expression on his face as best as he can. “That Beelzebub?”

“Yeah.”

“Same Beelzebub who hates Heaven and tried to kill me with Holy Water?”

“‘Less there’s another one,” Adam says. “Gabriel looked confused but played along with it because that got my attention.”

Crowley runs a hand over his face. He’d have expected it from Gabriel - actually, no, he wouldn’t have, but if it had been Gabriel, then it would have made sense in a ‘through and through he’s still an angel’ way. But _Beelzebub?_

“They were trying to convince me to help them figure out the Ineffable Plan, because for all I knew, it maybe didn’t even have to involve a war,” Adam says. “I told them if they really wanted to figure out the Ineffable Plan, they should stick around, hang out with the humans a bit.”

“That sounds like a bad idea,” Crowley says.

“I’unno sounds kinda cool, doesn’t it?” Brian asks, “Hanging out with a demon and an angel?”

Wensleydale frowns and motions to Aziraphale and Crowley. “Brian, _they’re_ a demon and an angel.”

“Well, I don’t think they took my advice but I could tell it bothered them,” Adam says, “The whole possibility of the Ineffable Plan not having to involve war, and then the possibility that figuring out the Ineffable Plan can be done by sticking around the humans.”

“But humans don’t know, my dear, it’s...” Aziraphale slowly trails off. Crowley sees the pieces clicking together in his head. Brilliant, brilliant angel.

He sighs first, though. 

“My boy,” Aziraphale says, “That is quite clever.”

A demon questioning if a war is ever needed for the Ineffable Plan, being told that the answer might be with the humans. If guided correctly, they could see exactly why Aziraphale and Crowley had fallen in love with Earth, and maybe, just maybe they could actually think, _huh,_ maybe we actually _don’t_ need a war after all.

But, humans are also equally as horrible as they are good.

“What if they focus on the bad parts of humanity?” Crowley says. “It happens, that’s why a lot of people get disillusioned.”

Adam looks thoughtful at that. 

“True,” Aziraphale says. “You were lucky enough to be raised by wonderful parents, Adam, but the rest of the world isn’t all like Tadfield.”

“My mum says a lot of what we think and how we define our beliefs is often a reaction to what we observe and experience,” Pepper recites. “She says what we have experienced beforehand has a huge impact on how we think too.”

“Beelzebub’s a demon,” Wensleydale says, “That’s a lot of bad stuff in the ‘beforehand’ part.”

Like trust issues and getting disillusioned by Heaven, but Crowley doesn’t say that.

“I think, if we want to get this right, they might need some help looking in the right direction,” Aziraphale says. “A bit of a convincing that they _should_ stick around humanity, the whole of it and not just the side of it they’re going to want to see to further their set beliefs.”

Adam nods, thinking it over. On his lap, dog yawns. 

“That’s not even counting Gabriel,” Crowley says. 

“Well, if they’re working on this together, it could be, uh.” Aziraphale searches for the expression. “Two birds with one stone.”

“We could save the world again?” Brian asks.

Pepper sighs. “I’m putting this on my resume when I get older.”’

Adam closes his eyes. Crowley feels a bit of power rush off from him. Dog’s ears perk up.

“They’re not together,” he says. “They’ve gone separate ways.”

“Oh, dear,” Aziraphale says.

“I think Gabriel’s looking for them, though, so there’s a chance they might find each other again,” Adam says. He opens his eyes. “You do have a point, though. I think they could use a little push.”

Crowley raises an eyebrow. “Are you going to give it to them?”

“Maybe,” Adam says, cheeky. He looks up at the sky as the first raindrop hits him square on the nose. “But, I think we should get out of the rain now.”

 

* * *

 

Miles away, someone’s phone buzzes.

 

* * *

 

It’s raining. 

Several places are raining, really, as is prone to happen in the world, but it just so happens that, as the afternoon rain falls down on Crowley, Aziraphale and the Them, the morning rain falls down on Beelzebub as they land in front of their destination.

If people won’t get them anywhere, then maybe possible thin parts in the veil of reality will.

There’s not a lot to these thin parts, especially when one is of angelic stock and able to access multiple planes of existence at once, but they do fluctuate, every now and then, and they tend to act like doorways. Maybe, if Beelzebub’s lucky, they could get a doorway straight to Her.

Yes, they’re aware they’re grasping at straws here, but it’s going to be better than doing anything the Antichrist says. And infinitely better than asking Crowley for any advice.

They stare at the museum for a minute. What are they doing?

They could be looking for texts to study. Actually, that had been one of their first ideas, but most holy texts - credible ones at least - are under the guard of Heaven’s vault. They could have pitched the idea to Gabriel, but they’d be loathe to give the angel any idea he could use to get to the answer before them.

So here they are, just slumming it around with their next best option.

And they’re soaking wet. They slip the glasses off their face for a second, irritated, but still thinking too much to dry themself off.

The rain stops hitting them, suddenly, but not because they’ve done anything. They look to the side.

“You looked like you needed help,” the young boy holding the umbrella over their head says.

“I didn’t,” Beelzebub says. They slip the glasses back on.

“Cool,” he says, “Thought it would be nice to offer it anyway.”

Beelzebub looks at the I.D he’s wearing and the small bag of snacks in his hands. He’s a museum visitor. 

Discreetly, Beelzebub thinks up a similar I.D pass to manifest into their satchel. 

“You visiting the museum too?” the young boy asks, “You’re super early, then, it’s not open yet.”

“Why are you here if it isn’t?” they ask.

“I got hungry, actually,” he says, lifting the bag of snacks. “And I wanted to see the city, so I snuck out. Dad doesn’t know I’m out.”

Rebellious kid. Eh, small bles - curses. 

“I was walking past when I saw you,” he says, “You?”

“Morning walk,” they say.

“In the rain.”

“Yeah.”

_”Why?”_

“I wanted to,” Beelzebub says. 

The young boy frowns and tilts his head. After a while, he says, with evident concern, “Are you okay?’

Beelzebub frowns back, confused. “Of course.”

“Okay,” he says, although he sounds unsure. “The museum doesn’t open for two hours. Do you wanna go get some food with me? I heard they’ve got some really nice pancakes in a diner down the road.”

“No,” Beelzebub says.

“Come on, it’ll be my treat!” he says, oddly insistent for a young child. They wonder if he’s one of those kids they’ve heard about who trick and lure people to get nabbed off the street by discreet white vans they work for. He fishes out a wallet from his jeans, and Beelzebub takes a second to inspect him. Good, well-tailored clothes, well-groomed hair, manicured nails. He looks rich. If he’s part of some kidnapping scheme, they must be rather successful with their business.

He lifts the wallet up. “Got it from my dad.”

Or he’s really just an ordinary child who happens to be a little thief. 

“Or we can wait here,” he says. “I don’t want to go back to the hotel anyway.”

“Can I ask why you’re inviting a complete stranger to get food with you?” Beelzebub asks, still waiting for a grown adult human to grab them if this is in fact a kidnapping ploy.

The boy shrugs. “Let’s say we’ve got too much money to squander, but it’s in my dad’s wallet, and I hate him, so I’m blowing it all off in any way I can think of.”

A _very_ rebellious thief. He doesn’t look older than twelve.

Beelzebub smiles, amused, feeling a little bit better.

“I think I’ll pass,” they still say. 

“Your loss,” the boy says. “I was gonna ask the diner people if they had suggestions for haunted places, mystery spots and all that in the city. Would have been neat.”

A good offer, but Beelzebub’s already done their research. They shake their head.

“Blow off the money buying what your dad hates,” they say, “Then he wouldn’t be able to use any of it.”

The boy grins a little wider. “Thanks. I like you. Uh…?”

“Belle,” they say. 

“Thanks, Belle. Maybe I’ll see you later when the museum opens,” the boy says, pocketing the wallet. 

He sticks out his hand to Beelzebub to take. “Only polite to introduce myself before I leave,” he says, “My name’s Warlock.”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> /dabs  
> it's  
> MIDTERMS SEASON  
> pray for my soul
> 
> artblog: https://almostsweetangel.tumblr.com/  
> instagram: https://www.instagram.com/teacupchaos/


	8. Children Like These

**** When Adam Young ducks into the Bentley, miles away, a phone buzzes. 

Or, has buzzed. But let's go back to when it was buzzing. 

A phone is buzzing, and it's rather irritating because Warlock Dowling thinks it's loud enough to wake his father up even when logically, he knows only he can feel and hear the buzz. He snatches the wallet up, closes the drawer it had been in as quietly as he can and rushes into the bathroom, praying, the whole time,  _ please don't be a phone call, please don't be a phone call.  _

It's not, thankfully. He stares at the text on his phone screen as he pockets the wallet.

The text reads:  _ how would you like to save the world?  _

Warlock huffs and quickly types up his reply, before stuffing the phone back in his pocket. He clambers onto the toilet, reaching for the open window above it, and hauls himself out, careful not to let go as his father's bedroom is several stories off the ground. 

Miles away, Adam Young has his phone with him, but he doesn't bother picking it up, already knowing what Warlock has texted back:

 

**_[Wow Duckling]:_ **

**_Young, it is one in the morning._ **

 

He keeps a straight face as he thinks up his answer, and Warlock's phone buzzes again as he carefully navigates the ledge he's standing on. He ignores it in favor of holding onto a thin grove on the wall his fingers have found, before reaching his other hand out to grab onto the railing of his room's balcony. 

He manages to hold onto it, and then jumps, immediately shooting his other hand out to grab onto it as well. His feet land on the edge. He hauls himself to the other side. 

He takes a moment to catch his breath, laughing with the adrenaline rush (he could hear Nanny’s voice in his head - “Brilliant, but dangerous, and we could do with a little less danger, Warlock, you are  _ twelve.”)  _ before slipping inside his room and locking the balcony doors behind him. 

He flops onto his bed, pumping out a fist in a little cheer. That had been fun. 

His phone buzzes again. 

He groans and checks it. There's two messages. 

 

_ [YMCA]: _

_ then why are you thieving at one in the morning _

_ nanny would have killed you if she knew you were climbing out a bathroom window seventeen stories off the ground _

 

Warlock wrinkles his nose. 

 

**_[Wow Duckling]:_ **

**_Stop looking through my life, that's creepy._ **

 

He doesn't even get to put his phone down before there's already an answer. 

 

_ [YMCA]:  _

_ i just noticed it, couldn't help it _

_ anyway, how would you like to save the world?  _

 

**_[Wow Duckling]:_ **

**_What, did you mess up and actually accidentally start the apocalypse?_ **

 

_ [YMCA]: _

_ :( i confided in you with the express trust that we were friends. kin. brothers. how could you use that against me _

 

**_[Wow Duckling]:_ **

**_You might actually beat my record for being dramatic._ **

 

 

_ [YMCA]: _

_ aha, watch out, i'm coming for your title _

 

**_[Wow Duckling]:_ **

**_I still climbed a ledge to get a wallet._ **

**_Without Antichrist powers._ **

 

_ [YMCA]: _

_ i just stopped time to talk to an angel and a demon _

Warlock sits up. Now, he's paying attention.

 

**_[Wow Duckling]:_ **

**_What did Nanny and Brother Francis dance around this time?_ **

 

_ [YMCA]: _

_ lmao no, not them _

_ another pair came to see me _

 

That… sounds bad. Warlock hadn't been there when the Apocalypse was cancelled, hadn't even been aware save for the niggling suspicion that something was up when he saw a man with weird eyes who bled black. He's not a superstitious kid, but he doesn't fully discount the existence of something outside of what people consider logical. 

He'd grown up around his Nanny, after all, with her weird eyes and a hiss that slipped through her speech when she’d get rather irritated with how the other people in the house treated him. 

He'd only learned about the Apocalypse months later, after he'd decided to put his foot down on things, missing England more than he loved America and said,  _ I'm the one going to school, and I say I want to go back. _

 

**_[Wow Duckling]:_ **

**_Is that a good thing or a bad thing?_ **

 

_ [YMCA]: _

_ bit of both i think _

_ they're not here to destroy the world _

_ but they are trying to figure out a plan that might involve it _

 

**_[Wow Duckling]:_ **

**_That doesn't sound like a bit of both, that sounds like it's just bad._ **

 

_ [YMCA]: _

_ it does but they haven’t gotten there yet _

_ in fact, they were actually trying to get me to help them figure it out _

 

Warlock doesn’t know Adam Young that well; not as well as his other friends do, at least; but friends stick with friends so he’s going to back him up and give him a bit of trust on this.

**_[Wow Duckling]:_ **

**_Lmao, how’d that go?_ **

 

_ [YMCA]: _

_ i told them no _

_ and then the demon said that maybe the ineffable plan didn’t even involve a war _

_ they said that they were just trying to figure out what the plan was, and maybe, for all i knew, there didn’t have to be a war so maybe it wasn’t all that bad _

 

Warlock has no idea what an ‘ineffable plan’ is, but he’s guessing it’s something along the lines of the stories Brother Francis used to tell him. It seems like it would fit.

 

**_[Wow Duckling]:_ **

**_It doesn’t matter what the plan is, just to figure it out?_ **

 

_ [YMCA]: _

_ s’what they said, but i don’t believe they think that _

_ i think they were just trying to convince me _

 

**_[Wow Duckling]:_ **

**_Okay, I don’t see how that’s good, then._ **

 

_ [YMCA]: _

_ well _

_ the look on their face after they said that suggested that they might have tricked themself into actually considering that _

 

**_[Wow Duckling]:_ **

**_Oh, they played themself._ **

**_RIP_ **

 

_ [YMCA]: _

_ yep _

_ but i mean, considering it is good, but it’s not enough for what we want here _

_ so we need them to actually see it, that, you know maybe a war isn’t necessary _

 

**_[Wow Duckling]:_ **

**_Okay, how are you going to do that?_ **

 

_ [YMCA]: _

_ *drumroll* _

_ warlock duckling how would you like to save the world? _

 

**_[Wow Duckling]:_ **

**_I knew you were gonna say that._ **

 

Warlock’s never really considered himself a universe-saver, or an apocalypse-stopper or anything like that, and the first thing he thinks of, presented with this offer, is that it is way too dangerous. He likes a good adventure. He loves the thrill of pissing his dad off and climbing ledges and not doing what his mother says, but the apocalypse seems a little too grand a scale for a twelve-year-old boy like him to go toe to toe against.

But, then again, Adam and his friends did it.

Except Adam’s the Antichrist, they had an angel and a demon with them, an actual witch, a guy who - according to Wensleydale - could destroy any piece of technology with the barest touch, a weird old guy who said weird things nobody really says, and a fake psychic. Between that, and the end of the world, they were pretty set for it.

Warlock’s just Warlock.

But then again - 

 

_ [YMCA]: _

_ before you say no, i’d make sure you were okay _

_ and you don’t even need to do much, i just need you to talk to one of them _

_ cause you’re actually good with talking to people like that, you know. good head on your shoulders. not very overwhelming approach. think you’d be the best option to approach them _

 

**_[Wow Duckling]:_ **

**_The angel and the demon?_ **

 

_ [YMCA]: _

_ yeah _

_ well, the demon _

_ we don’t actually have much time, i’m actually messing with time a little right now and my present is not your present, because in my present, beelzebub would be right at the museum you’re supposed to visit, but i’m sending my words to my past (your present) so that the presents line up right where i want them to _

 

**_[Wow Duckling]:_ **

**_ADAM_ **

 

Warlock stares at his phone in disbelief and exasperation. As a second thought, considering the literal Antichrist is messing with time to get him to do this, he sends him a still image of the  _ Adam  _ vine.

 

_ [YMCA]: _

_ where did i lose you _

 

**_[Wow Duckling]:_ **

**_NOWHERE. BUT WHY WOULD YOU DO THIS._ **

 

Adam doesn’t answer for a while. Warlock actually wonders if something had happened with his time travel message shenanigans.

A new message pops up after a few minutes.

 

_ [YMCA]: _

_ well, honestly, i just noticed you were in the area when i checked where beelzebub was _

_ and i noticed you were supposed to go to the museum _

_ and i thought, hey, why not line them up, right? _

 

**_[Wow Duckling]:_ **

**_Get Johnson to do it._ **

 

_ [YMCA]: _

_ no _

 

**_[Wow Duckling]:_ **

**_He’s not that bad._ **

 

_ [YMCA]: _

_ i know, childhood rivalry just stands _

_ anyway, he’s in tadfield _

_ you’re already in the area _

 

**_[Wow Duckling]:_ **

**_You said Beelzebub._ **

**_Lord of the Flies??? Prince of Hell???_ **

**_I’M TWELVE???_ **

 

_ [YMCA]: _

_ so am i  _

 

**_[Wow Duckling]:_ **

**_You’re the Antichrist._ **

 

_ [YMCA]: _

_ i’m still twelve _

_ and _

_ come on, we both know you’ve been bored your whole trip, that’s why you stole the wallet _

 

Well, he’s not wrong. While his father had agreed to letting him return to England and continue his studies there, he was still being dragged around to trips whenever the man would travel. ‘Family bonding time’, he’d say, like he was actually ever around. His mother, at least, tried, but his father was usually nowhere to be seen.

Nanny and Brother Francis were around more. He lowers his phone, letting the screen blink off, that now-familiar feeling of homesickness curling around his chest. Funny that.

His phone buzzes again. He opens the message.

 

_ [YMCA]: _

_ besides _

_ it’ll piss your dad off _

 

Ah.

He does have a point.

 

* * *

Warlock. 

There’s plenty of people, maybe a couple hundred in the seven billion of the world, named Warlock, but Beelzebub thinks there aren’t a lot of them who are twelve-year-old boys with a penchant for thievery and L'Oréal Paris hair. They glance down at the I.D he’s wearing. 

Warlock Dowling.

Ah, now that rings a bell. This is the boy Crowley had reported as the Antichrist but just turned out to be an ordinary human. Funny coincidence, that. Almost-suspicious coincidence, but it’s nothing Beelzebub can prove, and it’s not like the child can do anything against them aside from try and whack them with the umbrella.

He doesn’t. Instead, he hands the umbrella over to them, insistent, and only leave after they take it. Beelzebub watches him leave, bringing his jacket up to shield himself from the rain since he’s stupidly given his umbrella away.

Funny boy. Beelzebub has no idea if he’d make a better or a worse Antichrist than Adam Young, considering he’d stolen money but lent help to a complete stranger. 

Although, according to Hastur, he’d told him he’d smelled like poo, so there’s that.

Since it really is too early in the morning for the museum to be open, Beelzebub waits by the steps, the umbrella keeping them dry after they’d scared off all the raindrops that had landed on them earlier. Rainy, early mornings are often quiet since everyone is trying to stay inside and keep dry, and so the noise stays inside with them, but Beelzebub, for once, doesn’t appreciate the quiet.

The quiet makes them think. With a mind like theirs, it makes them think too much, so instead they focus on the raindrops, watching them patter all around them, joining the puddles, splashing by their feet but never really quite reaching. They’re actually quite pretty. Tranquil, maybe, would be a better word for what they want to say.

It doesn’t rain in Hell. In Hell, it’s either scorching or humid. The higher levels - not the parts where the souls are, the actual offices - are hot, the closer they are to the fiery pits. The lower levels just have dripping water from the pipes, filthy and dirty and undrinkable, not that any of them need to drink. And then, at the very bottom, freezing cold. Nothing but stretches of bare white, with a few workers who couldn’t fit in the offices upstairs or were too insignificant to even be remembered and given better places to work on.

Sometimes, they bring one of the frozen salesmen that have gotten stuck on the road to Hell there. They make for fun statues. 

Who knew falling water could be fun to watch and listen to, they think. Heavy little things, battering around the earth like they weren’t the ones crashing into the rest of their brethren.

“It’s like angels, huh,” they mutter, “Fall as heavy as they can fly.”

“What does?”

They look up. The boy is back, except he’s got another umbrella with him this time and a paper bag of something that smells really good.

Warlock holds it up. “I thought you might be hungry.”

They nearly say they don’t get hungry, but they’re trying to pass off as human, so they say, “No, thanks.”

“No breakfast?” Warlock asks, lowering the bag.

“Didn’t feel like it,” they say. 

“Suit yourself, just say so when you  _ are  _ hungry,” he says, opening the bag and pinning the umbrella handle between his arm and his middle so he can take a croissant out of it. He takes a bite. It actually does smell really good. Must be freshly-baked. “But what falls as fast as it can fly?”

“Birds,” Beelzebub says.

Warlock blinks. “Are you thinking of shooting some down?”

“Maybe.”

_ “Hey.”  _ The boy looks affronted. Okay, maybe he really is too soft. 

“They’re irritating, sometimes,” Beelzebub says. Like peacocks. Loudly colorful, dramatic things. They reminded them of Gabriel, sometimes, which is something, considering Beelzebub’s only ever seen a peacock once, and that had been when they’d popped up to check on one of Legion’s manifestations, who happened to be working in an area populated by peacocks. 

“I mean, yeah, but they’re okay, sometimes,” Warlock says, “Crows are really smart.”

Beelzebub’s never seen one up close. Only heard of them. They know a lot of them are associated with horror imagery, but that’s the only fact they’ve bothered to remember.

“I’m just not fond of birds,” they say.

“Fair enough,” Warlock says. He breaks off a piece of his croissant and pops it in his mouth. “What’s your favorite animal, then?”

Is...is he making small talk?

At their raised eyebrow, Warlock shrugs. 

“We’ve got a bit before the museum opens and we’re both bored, we might as well make it a little less awkward,” he says, “Besides, I think you’re pretty neat.”

They’re what?

“Do we have to make it a little less awkward?” they ask.

“Well,” he says, “Maybe a little less  _ boring.  _ It’s really quiet this morning, yeah? Even with the rain.” He looks up at that, and as he does, Beelzebub does too, and - it’s actually a lovely sight, the grey sky, the rain falling. A drop hits their lashes as their concentration on keeping the water away breaks, and sudden cold seems to make their brain quiet in surprise.

They wipe at their face. 

“Thought it would be nice to talk,” Warlock says. 

“I don’t think it ever really is,” Beelzebub says.

“Why?”

“I have to listen to a lot of stupid things.”

Warlock laughs. Beelzebub stares at him. 

“That sounds like there’s a story behind that,” he says, “Who do you have to listen to?”

They frown a bit. He’s really just a random boy, right? They’re far away from Adam Young, and Crowley, and Gabriel, but there’s just something off about this. 

The boy waits patiently, finishing off his croissant. 

“I have co-workers,” Beelzebub says, after he keeps waiting. “Some of them can’t do their jobs right.”

“How so?”

“Some of them do the complete opposite of what they’re supposed to do,” they say, thinking about one snake of a demon who’s now gallivanting around Earth trying to be ‘cool’, whatever that means. Plenty of cold in hell.

The boy looks thoughtful at that. 

“Kinda like my dad, then,” he says, finally. “He’s supposed to be a dad, but he doesn’t do a lot of that.”

Ah. Beelzebub’s no stranger to that sort of story. They’ve filed a lot of cases of human souls who’d been terrible to their children and had ended up in Hell for it. They hum.

“At least you get free from it outside of work, though?” Warlock offers.

“The few people I talk to outside of work - ” They wonder idly where Gabriel is, if he’s found them yet. “ - are just as infuriating.”

“Ouch, why’s that?”

“A lot of self-righteousness to go around,” they say. “A lot of vanity too.”

“They’re always right, even when they’re not?”

“Yeah,” Beelzebub says. “Exactly like that.”

“Ugh.” Warlock makes a disgusted face. “Yeah, I can understand that. Have you punched them in the face yet?”

Beelzebub almost smiles, amused. “I am currently not allowed to.”

“Happy day when you do get allowed to, then,” Warlock says. 

That’s what they’re trying to figure the Ineffable Plan out for, and if the Plan doesn’t involve a war, then Beelzebub can’t punch Gabriel in the face, and they have quite a mighty need for it. There has to be a war. It would be ridiculous to be without it. 

They’re going to get in that museum, and if they find nothing, they’re going to stop mucking around and actually do something that might get them answers. There is a Plan that has to be figured out, and they don’t have time for sticking around Earth and observing humanity. Adam Young had just been trying to distract them. 

They have to figure this out. 

“At least they’re not here,” Warlock says.

Beelzebub finds themself agreeing with that. At the very least, even when there’s a very strange child here, Gabriel isn’t. Even if it’s a  _ yet _ , he’s not here and Beelzebub gets to just stand around and not worry about hearing whatever drivel is about to come out of his mouth. 

Both of them wait for the museum to open, standing by the porch. At one point, Warlock gets a call from his very angry father and he just takes it with the boredom of a child who’s heard the lecture one too many times before. Beelzebub watches in amusement. 

The rain doesn’t let up even until the museum opens up. It’s fine. Beelzebub doesn’t get to see it everyday, anyway.

* * *

**_[Wow Duckling]:_ **

**_You owe me._ **

**_I’m fumbling here. I’m trying to be relatable. I’m trying to make small talk with a demon._ **

**_If I die, I will kill you._ **

 

_ [YMCA]: _

_ good luck _

 

**_[Wow Duckling]:_ **

**_I hate you._ **

**_What is even relatable to a demon._ **

**_Hatred? Of Heaven? Of the Church?????_ **

**_‘Haha hey,,,so angels and holiness huh what a joke.’_ **

 

_ [YMCA]: _

_ well you’re still texting so i think it’s going well _

_ i can’t get to beelzebub bc they’ll think i’m just trying to trick them. you’re good with seeing both sides and they don’t know you yet. besides, you’re good with conversations with people you just met. the poker face makes it very convincing _

 

**_[Wow Duckling]:_ **

**_Amazing. Truly makes me feel appreciated._ **

 

_ [YMCA]: _

_ you’ve got the charisma _

 

**_[Wow Duckling]:_ **

**_You say that, but I’m here just trying my best to keep us talking and relaxed. I got nothing._ **

**_I’m just shitting on my dad now._ **

 

_ [YMCA]: _

_ i mean, screw your dad _

 

**_[Wow Duckling]:_ **

**_True, but still, this is only one topic. If I’m to keep the conversation going and just subtly go, hey!!! The world isn’t that bad!!! I’m gonna need more._ **

 

_ [YMCA]: _

_ you can do it i believe in you _

 

**_[Wow Duckling]:_ **

**_Wow, thank you, that’s very helpful._ **

**_Not like I’m just a literal twelve-year-old boy who happened to be in the area._ **

**_And now I have to try and steer a conversation._ **

**_So a demon doesn’t try to end the world._ **

 

_ [YMCA]: _

_ good luck, thoughts and prayers _

 

**_[Wow Duckling]:_ **

**_I HATE YOU_ **

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> /dabs  
> you know i love me some baby trio friendship fics
> 
> artblog: almostsweetangel.tumblr.com  
> writing blog: inkteacup.tumblr.com  
> twitter: @angelteasugar


	9. Under Trial

Gabriel is not reporting back to Heaven without anything to show, and he certainly isn't going back saying, _The enemy was on the same mission as I was, I tailed them and then promptly lost them._

So he looks for Beelzebub. 

It is not very difficult to find an angel or a demon on a planet as small as Earth. They give off a certain energy and an aura, and while most humans can't tell them apart, anyone of angelic stock easily can. On Earth, there are currently three other auras that Gabriel finds as he reaches out to sense them. 

Aziraphale, Crowley and Beelzebub. 

Aziraphale’s feels like something soft and warm, like a comfortable coat for a cold day, or a warm tailor's shop during a storm. 

Crowley's feels harsh and yet at the same time gentle, changing and coiling and uncoiling like his true form. 

Beelzebub's feels like a storm, the buzz of static during a hurricane. He thinks that if he scratches the very tips of his wing feathers across the charge of their aura, he'd trace lightning. 

They feel angry, but most demons are. They're wrathful little things. It's just how things should be, so he's not surprised. 

It takes him a little while, because they move a few times, but he finally pinpoints them in a city across the world, and flies after them. It's raining when he lands there, and he gets pelted by the raindrops for a few seconds before he glares at them to avoid him and get off his clothes. They do, fearfully. 

He's standing in front of a museum. He feels for Beelzebub's aura again, finding it inside the museum. 

People are coming in from the rain, showing their I.D.s up front, so he manifests one and clips it to the front of his suit. He gives the receptionist a polite nod and heads in, immediately searching for the stain of their aura. 

He  finds them standing in front of a glass case that appears to have a necklace in it. He doesn't feel anything remarkable from it, but Beelzebub appears to be checking out the plaque on it. 

They hum and turn to the child standing beside them, saying something. The kid laughs, bites down on his knuckles and looks around, and then responds, voice lowered. 

Gabriel pauses in his steps. Curious. The child doesn't seem to be a demon when he checks his aura. He's just a regular kid. 

He keeps his distance, but listens in. 

“I don't know, my dad’s not big on superstition,” the child says. “Just sucking up.”

“Shame,” Beelzebub says. 

“I'm determined enough to be a curse on his side, anyway.”

Beelzebub smiles slightly, amused and approving. Ah. Tempting little children to disobedience, then. Of course. Evil never sleeps. 

“He's already mad I'm out the hotel,” the boy says, “Thankfully, traffic is a thing.”

They hum, giving the glass case one last glance before walking away. The kid follows them as they move on to the next exhibit. So does Gabriel. 

“Can't punch them in the face, but at least we can piss'em off, right?”

“There is a certain sort of high you get from pissing people off,” Beelzebub says. 

“It's a lot better than most team-building exercises, I think.”

“Does your father have to attend many?”

“Not really, but sometimes he calls family time ‘team-building’. Mother hates it,” he says, “Not that he notices.”

“Do you hate him?”

“I don't know.” The boy shrugs. “I think hate is too strong. Resent works, maybe.”

“He'd probably deserve it.”

Teaching children to be hateful of their parents. Gabriel frowns. 

“Probably,” the boy says, “But - I don't know, I think I'm just going to be happy to get out the house. I'm already having fun pissing him off. Don't know much about what to do from there.”

“Plenty,” Beelzebub says. 

“Yeah, but if I'd be...as immature as he is,” he says, sounding like that's not quite what he's trying to say, so he tries again. “He's an idiot. I'd be just as idiotic as he is.”

“I see,” Beelzebub says. The kid shrugs, takes out his phone, and types a few things into it. 

“What about you, what are you going to do once you're out the workplace?” he asks. 

Beelzebub doesn't answer for a while. Then they say, “Celebrate. Gloat, maybe.”

_“Gloat.”_ The boy laughs. “Do you hate your coworkers?”

“Yes,” they say. 

“Truly hate them?”

“Yes.”

The boy is silent for a moment. 

“Have you ever considered quitting?” he asks. 

Beelzebub glances at him. He shrugs again.

“If you hate it there, you're probably miserable,” he says. “I resent my parents. I don't like my house. Sometimes I hate it. I'm moving out as soon as I can. I can't imagine how it must be like to hate your job and still have to do it... “ He trails off. “ _Can_ you afford to quit? How long have you been working there?”

“As long as I can remember,” they say. Gabriel is impressed they're still entertaining this child and appear to not be irritated. “And… no, I can't quit.”

The boy's face falls. He takes out a wallet from his pockets. “I can give most of this to you so you can have something to tide you over if you quit.”

Nice kid, Gabriel thinks. Very charitable. And Beelzebub is working on corrupting his soul. He walks a little faster. 

“I'll be fine,” Beelzebub says. “It's more of - more of a family business, I'd say. And I can't leave it.”

“Ah.” The boy wrinkles his nose. “I get that. My dad's… he's got some credence to his name, and I think he expects me to follow in his footsteps.” He waves the wallet and then slips it back into his pocket. “Not gonna happen.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah, I'm leaving home. Just because my dad’s doing one thing doesn't mean I have to do the same. Most things aren’t really a _have to._ There's just stuff. And I choose what I want to,” he says, smiling. “And I've seen what my dad does. It's boring. It's messy. I wanna do something else. The world's pretty nice and wide, and there's a lot of options for me.”

Funny that. Gabriel would wonder if it's divine intervention lining up this conversation with what he and Beelzebub had just talked to Adam Young with, except _he's_ divine intervention, and he knows he's not doing this. 

He considers if Adam Young is behind it, for a moment. Would the boy go that far? 

“If you could quit, and nothing would happen after - no family chasing you, and no trouble at all, and you just had all these possibilities,” the boy asks, halting. They've both almost crossed the threshold to the other room. “What would you do?”

Gabriel glances at Beelzebub, also stopping, but a few steps later than the boy had, immediately turning to look at an item. Beelzebub stops walking.

“Well,” they start, and don't answer for a good while, but the boy is patient. “Well - I…”

Gabriel looks at their reflection on the glass he's facing. Their back is to him. 

“I don't know,” they say. 

“That's alright,” the boy says. “Most people don't figure it out for a long time, but I'll be rooting for you. Having to stuck in a family business you hate seems dreadful.”

He takes the wallet out again and then hands Beelzebub some cash.

“I think the way things go is that when an adult notices a child needs help, they're the one to offer it, not the other way around,” Beelzebub says. 

The boy just smiles.

Beelzebub takes the money, maybe just to get the boy out of their hair already. 

“You're an odd one, Warlock,” they say. 

That sounds familiar. Warlock - very infernal name, and very rare too, but he's heard about a Warlock recently. 

The kid can't be the mistaken Antichrist, right? Too much of a coincidence. 

“Thanks, I have a specific aesthetic and aura I'm committing to,” he says. He takes out his phone and then checks the time. “I'd better run now, though, meet my parents somewhere nearby. I'll say hi if we run into you here when we come back.”

Beelzebub gives him a wave, and he dashes off back to the entrance, walking past Gabriel obliviously. 

Gabriel waits until he's gone. Then, he turns to Beelzebub, who turns to him. He smiles and gives a little wave, almost mocking of the one they'd given Warlock. 

They huff, immediately back to their usual irritation. 

 

* * *

 

“That was a pleasant conversation, wasn't it?” he asks, standing with them as they look upon a painting. “And did you really think flying away from me would work?”

“It worked for a while,” they say. “Getting sloppy since you rarely come down here, are we?”

“There are three celestial beings aside from myself on earth, it takes time to pick you apart, but it can be done easily. Not to mention there is still the Antichrist,” he says. Then, as an afterthought, “And a hellhound.”

“Pride cometh before the fall.”

“Snark cometh before the punch.”

“Mm, we both know you won’t risk breaking the treaty,” Beelzebub says. “Still unable to do your own research?”

“I’m perfectly capable of doing better than you, I’m just being a good soldier.”

“Soldier, right,” Beelzebub says. They walk off. Gabriel follows them.

“This is futile.”

“If the Ineffable Plan is ineffable, then you’re not figuring it out any more than I am.”

“Ah, giving up, are we?” Gabriel asks. He feels Beelzebub’s wings stretch out and puts a hand on their shoulder. They grit their teeth, glaring back at him as they pause in their steps.

“No,” Gabriel says.

“We are getting nowhere,” Beelzebub says, “How many times have we had this argument? What’s it going to take for you to understand and give it up?”

“Blessed is the one who perseveres under trial.”

“You are thick,” Beelzebub says. “Just completely daft. I don’t understand how you still exist.” They slap his hand off their shoulder, straighten out their jacket, and turn so they’re facing him. “Okay,” they say, taking in a breath. “Okay. We can - we can deal with this like proper occult forces.”

“I’m ethereal.”

“Still just as shady as I am. But, since you’re an idiot, I’m willing to be the adult here and propose a compromise. A treaty, maybe, if that’s the term that’s going to get through to you,” they say.

The insults don’t do anything for the argument, but he’s listening, mostly because they look livid and it’s entertaining to watch.

“A treaty?” He raises an eyebrow.

“No violence, with the Heaven-Hell treaty already in place,” they say, “And - since following me around is obviously putting a damper on you being able to showcase your talent with research and solving things, how about you leave me alone?”

He drops the eyebrow.

“And,” they continue, “In return, I promise no funny business.”

“You’re a demon. Lying’s one of your strong suits.”

“You can check in at the end of a - ” they pause and glance at one part of the room. Gabriel sees them looking at a clock. “A twenty four hour period.”

“You could still lie.”

“Not if we make it an official treaty.”

_“No,”_ Gabriel immediately says. He’s not dealing with the mess that a contract suddenly manifesting in Heaven is going to make. “Absolutely not.”

“Then you’re just going to have to chase me all over the globe unless you give up.” They give up on the pleasantries and sneer. “I hate you, you hate me. You insist on trying to be a spy anyway when you’re terrible at it. I don’t like my own suggestion any more than you do, I just want you to _leave.”_

“And the feeling is mutual,” Gabriel says, frowning. “I would prefer it if no agent of Hell were on Earth at all.”

“Tough luck, then,” Beelzebub says. He sees them getting ready for flight again, and immediately chases after as soon as they move. They both land in the middle of a busy city. Beelzebub makes an irritated noise at the sight of him, and then flies again. He follows. 

They do the same thing, again, and again, and again, and Gabriel falls back behind for a few times, but he keeps following. They fly around for a while, startling too many humans along the way and no doubt filling up Heaven’s records, but this is important, and they’d understand, surely. 

Beelzebub suddenly stops, corporation folding in between the spaces of the planes of existence so their true form could slip out, many-eyed and many-winged and furious, turning on Gabriel with a staff in their hands, aiming it at him. He stops, still in his body, staring at them. They’re mid-air, hovering over a large ocean, so no one’s around to see anything, except maybe for Her, Heaven and Hell.

Gabriel waits to see what they’ll do, and Beelzebub doesn’t move. They just glare at him, a black hole behind their heads in place of a halo. 

Then, they twist their staff backwards, fold their wings in, and shove themself back into their body. They fall towards the ocean, flap their wings, and end up landing on a nearby island. Gabriel can see the frustration of their aura from where he is, still above the water.

He follows.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm late rip
> 
> art tumblr: almostsweetangel  
> writeblr: inkteacup  
> artstagram: teacupchaos


	10. The Treaty

Adam Young pauses his game to look out of his hotel window. 

The last he’s heard from Warlock is that when he’d come back to the museum after meeting his parents (and Adam pulling some strings to make sure the whole thing went off without a hitch and without Warlock getting yelled at), Beelzebub was no longer there. Ah, well, at the very least, there had to at least be some progress, right? Warlock said that they’d actually been civil, even if at times they seemed to be goading him to fall into his more ambivalent feelings about his father. 

Dog, sleeping beside him, stirs and lifts his head, sniffing.

Adam reaches over and pats his head. “Let’s hope they’re not getting into too much trouble,” he says. 

He turns back to his game, unpausing it. In another room, Aziraphale and Crowley are sharing a bottle of wine while discussing emergency plans for if something goes awry. In another room, oceans away, Warlock Dowling wonders if he’d managed to do anything at all, and thinks that while he’d prefer it if he did, he’d much prefer it if the world didn’t end even if it wouldn’t be attributed to his efforts. 

* * *

In the middle of nowhere, Beelzebub stands on the edge of a cliff and stares down at the water below, crashing against the rocks by the island. If Gabriel gets blown by the wind and is discorporated, they can just say it wasn’t their fault and he was just clumsy. 

By some miracle (haha), the idiot has decided to give them some space instead of crowding around them and attempting to make infuriating conversation. Which is a good call, honestly, as Beelzebub feels like they wouldn’t hesitate to tear his throat out right now. 

They’re not usually this irritable. Actually, they are, but they’re usually irritated with everyone in Hell, and in Hell, when they’re irritated,  they can just throw the offender at a hellhound to get ripped apart for a little while.  It’s just that they can’t take their frustration out on Gabriel right now. 

And oh, do they want to. He hadn’t even done anything when they’d nearly thrown a spear at him earlier, and they would have, and could have. Only - 

Beelzebub is angry, but Beelzebub is not a fool.

They draw in a breath, tamp down the urge to just scream, and instead let their frustration out as a sigh. It doesn’t work as well as a scream, but at the very least, they do feel a little less awful, and not in the Hell-acceptable way, in the actual _awful-_ awful way. 

Eventually, as if sensing it’s safe to approach, Gabriel comes to stand beside them.

“If you’re going to say something, I suggest you think about your words very carefully,” Beelzebub says. 

Gabriel appears to do so. He takes a pause before he speaks. “Heaven and Hell are not made for compromise,” he says. “This is as frustrating for me as it is for you.”

“Don’t be stupid, Gabriel,” Beelzebub says, about to stab themself in the foot mentally for what they’re about to say, but they _had_ been the one to offer aforementioned compromise in the first place. “Heaven and Hell have a Treaty. Aziraphale and Crowley have worked together for years.”

“Why would you ever base anything on them?”

“Because it would be stupid on our parts to ignore it. _Think_ about it for a second,” they say. “We are in charge of Heaven and Hell. To ignore an anomaly is to allow it to do whatever it pleases. And if it’s decided to infect everything else, the responsibility is on us.”

Gabriel pauses again. Beelzebub dares a glance at him. He looks deep in thought.

“What?” they ask.

“To not ignore it is to acknowledge it.”

“That’s not always a bad thing.”

He turns to them with a frown, like he’s saying, _Not to you._

Beelzebub huffs. “I might be a demon, but I can tell the difference between beneficial-bad and detrimental-bad. This isn’t detrimental.”

“To acknowledge it is to entertain thoughts about it, and that can easily sway people.”

“It sways idiots, that’s what,” they say. 

Gabriel gives them another long pause, but this time he’s looking straight at them. Beelzebub takes too long to connect the dots.

They have to stop themself from knocking the teeth out of his corporation.

“If there’s anyone here who’s been swayed by an idiot’s ideology, it’s you,” they say. “You blindly follow orders.”

“Mother knows what’s right.”

“Mother kicked half Her kids out for wondering what She meant,” Beelzebub spits out. “And if I happened to be on the other side of the door after that awful row, that’s on Her, not me.”

“You just said only idiots get swayed easily.”

“But only fools accept things blindly, Gabriel,” they say, and - Satan, they’re actually heaving, like they’re upset. Beelzebub doesn’t get upset. They get angry and incensed but never upset. Upset means crying and getting hurt feelings while also being angry, but they don’t have time for that. 

Gabriel - Gabriel says nothing. A semblance of pity creeps into his expression, but he wipes it away after a moment. Beelzebub catches it anyway. They haven’t had about a thousand meetings with this guy, planning important events in human history ( at least the ones involving the legions of Heaven and Hell in one way or another) just for them to not be able to tell what he’s thinking. If they don’t know what the enemy is planning, they’d get caught by surprise. 

Actually, there’s an idea.

Beelzebub smooths out their expression, suddenly amiable.

“Look,” they start, in the calmest voice they can manage. “We’ve worked things out for hundreds of years. We’ve reached agreements and have guided plans to go off without hitches for so long that it’s ridiculous that we’re not agreeing on _this_ one.”

Before Gabriel can protest, they plow on. “Egypt. I had Crowley harden the Pharaoh’s heart, had him do the miracles for the sorcerers, and you had Aziraphale guide Moses. Made for a rather extravagant thing, didn’t it?”

“That’s one thing.”

“The siege of Jericho, then. We had people inform the king about the spies you had sent, as per agreed.”

Gabriel grunts, not willing to give an answer. 

“David? Goliath? One of the most retold narratives of all time? As if that wasn’t theatre set up by two forces to craft a story?”

“Don’t - don’t say it like _that.”_ Gabriel stands up a little straighter, like an offended bird.

“The point is,” Beelzebub says. “The point is that we have actually been working together to achieve things again and again and again, and we did that during the scheduled apocalypse too. That’s always worked out for us. Hell, we were actually on track for the {lan. We could have continued to be on track had it not been for our two bumbling idiots who decided that they didn’t want the plan at all. What makes this instance different?”

“It’s not in the Plan.”

“Which we need to figure out,” Beelzebub says. They have him. They _have_ him. They know he can see that they have a point, they just need to reel him in. “It’s harmless. That’s why we have the non-violence treaty in the first place, isn’t it? To put a pause to things so we can figure it out.”

They wrack their brain for the briefest of seconds to find another hook to convince him. “Besides,” they say, “After we figure it out, we’re going to have to discuss everything anyway so we can properly follow the Plan. Wouldn’t do well for one side to know where the battle is and the other not to.”

_There._

They can see when everything clicks in Gabriel’s head, even when he visibly looks like he doesn’t want to admit it. But they’re right. The kicker is they’re not even lying this time, because before the apocalypse, Beelzebub and Gabriel had a meeting about who was doing who and who was meeting where, and that had been necessary to make sure everything would go without a hitch. 

If they’re going to make sure the Plan is going to be executed, they’re still going to have to do the same thing. 

But he’s hesitating, because Gabriel is an idiot, but not that much of an idiot, so Beelzebub sticks a hand out. _Appeal to him._

“Aren’t you as tired as I am about this, Gabriel?” they ask. The sad thing is, they don’t even have to pretend that they sound tired, because they are.

Of this stupid petty fight. Of the stupid Plan. Of the fact that they are, essentially, just settling a 6000-year-old grudge match.

They shake the last thought away. 

Gabriel stares down at their hand for a long, long while, before he eventually just sighs and takes it, giving it one firm shake. 

Beelzebub smiles. Strangely, it’s not malicious. In fact, it just feels relieved, and it feels a lot like being back in the old office room of Purgatory where they always discussed each side’s assignments.

“Alright,” Gabriel says. “Business as usual, then.”

“Absolutely,” Beelzebub says. “Business as usual.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Finals are finally (heh) done!
> 
> artblr: https://almostsweetangel.tumblr.com/  
> writeblr: https://inkteacup.tumblr.com/  
> artstagram: https://www.instagram.com/teacupchaos/

**Author's Note:**

> new??? dynamic??? that's gonna drag me into shipping hell most likely after i'm done with the fic??? yes  
> am i still gonna write it and take one for the team??? also yes
> 
> writeblr: https://inkteacup.tumblr.com/  
> artblog: https://almostsweetangel.tumblr.com/  
> twitter: https://twitter.com/angelteasugar  
> instagram: https://www.instagram.com/teacupchaos/


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